Ice Princess
by RoseDimitriLoveJunky
Summary: Set after the lust charm and just before FB.When Dimitri tells Rose that they can't be together. But after seeing how much he hurt her he try's to take it back. But Rose won't give him a chance to hurt her n Dimitri thor his Roza's frozen heart? What better way then a romantic ski holiday? And what will happen when Adrain shows up and wants Rose,but not for why you think?
1. Chapter 1

**For the Frostbite2015 1,5 Million Words Challenge!**

RPOV

Beep beep beep.

I groaned as I heard the annoying sound of my alarm telling me that it was time for training with my new least favorite person in the world.

Dimitri.

How was it that I could both hate and love him at once? It was confusing, not to mention, interfering with my sleeping. One night I was dreaming about kissing him and us being together, the next I was waking up crying after yet again remembering what had happened after the lust charm.

Flashback

_I walked into the gym ready to confront Dimitri about what had happened, he must feel something for me right? After kissing me like that, and holding me so close and- focus! I ordered myself. I needed to do this right. I saw Dimitri sitting on the training mats reading one of his westerners. He was so adorable._

_"Morning Comrade," I said trying to sound more confident than I felt. He looked up at me with his guardian mask on. That wasn't good._

_"Hello Rose" was all he said. No Roza? Ok, I guess I was going to have to be the one to get the ball rolling._

_"So, about what happened the other night- "_

_"What happened was a mistake that can never happen again," he said in a cold hard voice that caught me off guard. Whaaat?_

_"What! Why not? You obviously care about me and I have been trying very hard to hide what I feel for you in public. I mean I know there is the age difference thing to consider, but I will be 18 next year, it's not really that long a wait and-"_

_"No Rose, it's not that. What happened can't happen again," he said looking a little sad._

_"Why?" I asked trying to keep the pain out of my voice._

_"Because we are going to be Lissa's guardians and we can't have feelings for each other. The lust charm may have brought our feelings up to the surface, but we still can't act on them. We should just pretend that it never happened."_

_I didn't bother to try to fight the tears that fell down my cheeks. "But...I..I thought that you loved me," I whispered hating how pathetic I sounded, but I couldn't stop myself. I had to try, even if it all ended in flames._

_"I do Roza," he said in a soft voice and I felt a surge of hope. Until he said, "But that doesn't change anything. They come first and that's all there is to it."_

_I just cried harder. "I love you!" I said. It was the first time that I have ever said those words and I felt painfully vulnerable. I could tell that what I said had an affect on Dimitri, because his face softened for a moment. But then it was replaced by his guardian mask._

_"I know. But that doesn't change anything. We need to just forget that it happened."_

_I ran out of the gym and didn't stop until I was in my room, where I literally cried myself to sleep._

End flashback

Well maybe he could just forget about his feelings, but I couldn't. Every time I was with him, my heart broke a little bit more. How much pain could my heart be expected to take and keep beating?

I dragged myself out of bed and got ready. I was determined not to let him see how much what he said had hurt me. I was going to be as blank and emotionless as he was. I would wear a mask just like he did and never show him how much I was hurting inside.

DPOV

It had been 3 months since I told Roza that we couldn't be together, and 3 months since I started hating myself. I knew what I said would hurt Roza, and even though she was hiding it, I could tell how much pain she was in. I was feeling it too.

It had be three very long months. And in that time, Roza was getting more and more colder towards me, and I hated it. I know I said that we couldn't be together because we were both going to be guarding Lissa one day and that we couldn't afford to distract each other. But still, she didn't have to act like a robot around me. And I was actually thinking that it wasn't that impossible. I know we had to both focus on Lissa, but surely there was a way to be together AND do our jobs. Love for Dhampirs was rare, so rare. And I didn't want to throw it away.

"You did well today, but you need to speed up your back kick so it doesn't hang in the air and can get grabbed by a Strigoi," I told her as we finished up for the day. She just gave me a nod to acknowledge that she heard me. I felt myself slump a little. If she wanted to go all "ice princess" on me then I wasn't going to be able to get two words out before she shut me up. But still...

"Rose, about what I told you a few months ago, I -"

"Save it Guardian Belikov," she spat my name like it was acid in her mouth. "You already made your feelings perfectly clear, now if you will excuse me, Lissa wants to see me."

I just let out a defeated breath.

"You can go now," I said in a cold voice trying to match her mood. I had already tried to bring this topic up before, and she has shut me down, just like she did this time. It was like she had a layer of ice around her heart that I couldn't break. I know she still loved me, but she just wouldn't let herself admit it.

I had to find a way to get her alone long enough to get her to hear what I had to say before she shut me down and walked away. I could always pin her to the floor and wait until she was too tired to fight back and had no choice but to listen to me. But something told me that that wasn't the best way to start what I hoped would be a relationship.

I shook my head to try to clear thought of me and Rose together and left the gym. I was on my way back to my quarters when I heard a voice. I realized that it was coming from Christian's room. I didn't want to be nosy or anything, but the voice I heard sounded familiar.

" -doesn't understand. I gave him my heart, and he just stood on it when he said that we needed to put our jobs before each other. I mean I know we need to focus on you and guard you, but can't we do both?" I heard Rose say. My heart started to race.

YES! I knew that she still felt the same way about me! I moved in closer to the slightly opened door so I could just make out the two sitting on the bed. I know I shouldn't be eavesdropping on what they were saying and that if anybody walked by right now and saw what I was doing, I would have a lot of explaining to do. But this might be my only chance to hear what Rose really thought about me.

Roza had her knees tucked to her chest and as laying her head on them. She was so beautiful even without trying.

"You could give him another chance? It might work out better this time," Lissa said gently as she sat next to Rose. But she just shook her head.

"He hurt me once, I won't give him a second chance to do it again. I will just go the rest of my life with out love, I'll..." I zoned out after that. The rest of her life! She didn't need to be without love, I loved her! And I would tell her if she would just let me get a word in when we trained. I walked away from the room with my head spinning.

I love Roza. And she loves me. But she won't let me get close enough to her to prove it, so how could I get close enough to her to get under her ice princess mask?

I was so deep in thought that I didn't even notice Jack, another guardian, walking up behind me until he put his hand on my shoulder.

"Hello! Earth to Belikov!" he called out and I finally heard him.

"Sorry, I was lost in thought," I said and gave him a small smile.

"I could tell. You know thinking is a dangerous passing time, you could really hurt yourself," he said while laughing.

"Anyway I just wanted to see if you heard the news yet?" he asked. "But from that blank expression on your face I would say no. Well the school is sending a bunch of the older novices and Moroi on a ski trip. Their working on some stuff for the next term and you and Rose are on that list."

My head snapped up at that last part. "Why?" I was baffled.

Jack just shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know, something about continuing her training is a different environment or something, but since you're in charge of her you can do pretty much whatever you want."

My heart was pounding, a ski trip with Rose? Where we could be alone and talk in private and not worry about someone walking in on us in the gym? This was PERFECT!

But I didn't have training on my mind. No, I was going to break that ice wall around my Roza's heart and show her that we could be in love and still be guardians. I smiled to myself, I would have Roza back in my arms in a week tops.

And what better way than a romantic holiday?

**I know it's short. But my internet isn't working so your lucky that I can update at all;)**

**So what do you think? Should I continue?**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:I know you have all been waiting for this so here it is!**

_But I didn't have training on my mind. No, I was going to break that ice wall around my Roza's heart and show her that we could be in love and still be guardians. I would have Roza back in my arms in a week tops, I thought while smiling._

_And what better way than a romantic holiday?_

RPOV

I was just sitting down to eat breakfast when I heard Lissa scream! I jumped up instantly and got ready to kick the ass of whoever made her do that- except that when I turned around, nobody else was there.

"Liss what is it? What's wrong?" I asked still looking around for any danger.

"Oh nothing's wrong Rose, in fact everything's right! You will never guess what I just heard!"

I didn't even bother trying to guess. Whenever Lissa asked me to guess something she always ended up telling me before I even got one guess in. But I played along anyway.

"That the school caferter-"

"The school is sending us on a ski holiday!" she squealed again and started jumping up and down.

"Ok Liss ok tune it down a decibel, it's way too early in the morning for this much noise," I said, but I was smiling. This was perfect! It was just the thing I nedded to take my mind off of Dimitri.

After I gave him my heart and he stomped on it, training with him was awkward at best. I mean we had to see each other the next day and the next! There had been no time to heal. But now I could escape for a while and put the shattered pieces of my heart back together. I could go skiing in the day time and soak in a hot tub at night and curl up next to a roaring fire and-

"Wait! What's the catch?" I asked. This was to good, there had to be a trick here somewhere. Lissa just shrugged her shoulders.

"As far as I know there is no catch. Apparently there was this Strigoi attack a little while ago on some higher up roles and now they don't want their kids to go to their local school so they're sending them here. And the school needed to send a bunch of us away to make room or something. But that's not important, what is is that we're on the list!" she cried again and started jumping up and down.

Honestly. And I was the one that had donuts for breakfast. "Ok Lissa, yes this is great news," I said trying to make her stop. "How long do we get to go for?" _How long did I get away from Dimitri for?_

Wrong question. "A whole month!" Lissa shrieked and jumped up and down AGAIN! What did that girl have, springs in her shoes?

"Wow that is great, who else is going?" I asked as I planned who I would exact revenge on with a snowball fight. I really hoped that Jesse would be on that list. I owed him big time.

"All the novices and Moroi from our year level, and of course some guardians, " Lissa said casually as she looked over at the breakfast line.

I felt my heart go still. No. No no no. Lissa don't say it!

"Any idea who?" I asked trying to sound just as casual. Lissa looked at me with a slightly evil look in her eyes.

"Already picking out targets?" She knew me so well. "Well you will be happy to know that Stan Alto is going to help chaperone this trip so you had better save some revenge for the others, you're not the only one with a score to settle."

I couldn't help but laugh. She was so right, what with him going out of his way to torture his students with test that the school didn't approve and sitting students that he didn't like next to people that they didn't like so they would be just as miserable in class as he was. There would definitely be a queue.

"Well you're right about that. Anybody else?" I asked as I held my breath.

"Well Alberta will be in charge so if you do anything to bad then you most likely won't get sent back here as punishment. She always did have a soft spot for you."

"You can say that again, without her I probably would have been expelled ten times over," I laughed with her. But on the inside, I was shouting at her to just tell me if Dimitri would be coming on not!

"Well there's..." and on the list went. She must have named everyone that I didn't care about in alphabetical order! Aww screw it!

"What about Dimitri?" I asked trying to keep my voice level.

"Oh yes how could I forget? You two will be doing some sort of special harsh weather training together. But don't worry, you will still get plenty of time to hang out and go skiing and-"

But I had stopped listening. A whole MONTH with just Dimitri and I! No this couldn't be happening, this was all just some nightmare. Because I knew for a fact that if he got me alone for long enough, then I would stop fighting this pull in my heart that was telling me to forgive him and give him a second chance. But if I did that then what was to stop him from just breaking it again? No. I couldn't let this happen. I was going to have to get out of this trip somehow.

I realized that I hadn't been listening to a word that Lissa had said and she was looking at me expectingly. I just smiled and took a wild guess at what she asked me.

"Yeah Liss, I think that Christian would really like you in that," I said with a fake smile

"Oh you do? I thought that he might think that I was trying too hard to impress him."

Wow I actually got that right? Why couldn't I do that in class when I zoned out? Lissa continued on about something and I just nodded my head at the appropriate times, but I was really trying to think of a way to get out of this ski trip.

"And then I was thinking of- oh here comes Christian," she called out to him and he came over to sit with us.

"Good morning Rosie," he said with a smile so fake I'm surprised that I didn't see a rubber stamp on it.

"Good morning fire crotch," I said exactly as sweet. He didn't like that.

"What's that hairstyle you're going for? Drowned rat?" he said dropping the nice act.

"What's that gender your trying for? Male?" I said not missing a beat.

"Stop it you two, or I will have to separate you," Lissa said. Yeah like that was a threat!

"I'll stop annoying him when he stops doing that annoying thing with his mouth."

Christian looked at me confused. "What annoying thing wit-"

"See your doing it now! How does that not drive you crazy?" I asked in mock seriousness.

"Keep it up Hathaway and I'll take you outside to settle this like men," he threatened. I batted my eye lashes innocently.

"If were doing it like men then what are you coming along for then?" Christian stood up and I think he was about to throw a fireball at me.

"Stop it you two! If you keep fighting then you might not be allowed to go on the ski trip!" Lissa said truly annoyed now.

That was it! All I had to do was start a fight with someone and I would be banned from going on the trip! I was sad that I wouldn't get to go and ski with my friends and have a good time, but this was a matter of self presevation. I couldn't spend a whole month with Dimitri and make it through with my heart still intact. He would either have smashed it more by just pretending that I was nothing more to him then just another one of his students. Or he would try to win back my heart and then stomp on it before the holiday is over.

Either way, I couldn't endure to go on this trip.

DPOV

I was overjoyed about the chance to get Rose back in my life and back in my arms. One chance was all I needed, but that alone wouldn't be enough. Roza was stubborn. Even if I had her every day of this trip, which I wouldn't, she still might not take me back. I needed to think of something- no, more than just one something, I needed a whole bag of tricks to pull this off.

First I would try to lower her guard. Just try to talk to her, get her to open up a little, then, I would tell her something personal about me. She couldn't resist it when I told her something about my past or my family. Then if that went well, I would-"

_"Belikov, are you there? Over."_

I looked down at the walkie talkie on my belt. I had forgotten that I was on perimeter watch. I was too busy thinking of ways to win back the heart of the woman I loved.

"This is Belikov. What's the situation?" I asked my guardian mask (as my Roza called it) slipping into place.

"_Principal Kirova wants to see you in her office. There's been an incident involving Rose. Apparently she striped Jesse Zeklos down to his underwear and smeared him in honey before taking him out into the woods and tying him to an ant mound."_

I had to hold back my laughter. I know what Roza did was wrong, but I really didn't like Jesse after the rumors that he and Ralf spread about her.

"I'll be right there," I said before I put my walkie talkie away. Why would Roza do this now? It had been months ago that Jesse and Ralf did anything to her. So why now? I hoped that it wasn't because of the darkness. I knew that that could have some very bad effects on Rose.

I knocked on the door and was told to come in. I nodded to Principal Kirova as I walked and then took in the seat before me. Rose was sitting in a chair looking very happy with herself, while Jesse was sitting as far away from her as possible with a blanket warped around him. They must have gotten him to wash off the honey before bringing him in here.

"What seems to be to problem?" I asked even though I already knew the answer.

"Well it seems that Miss Hathaway decided to pull a nasty prank on Mister Zeklos involving a bunch of honey and an ant mound."

I glanced at Rose out of the corner of my eye. It wasn't like her do do something like this without a reason. But then again this was Rose were dealing with. All Jesse would have to do was say something nasty about either her or Lissa and Rose would think that the punishment was justified.

"And does she have a reason for doing this?" I asked looking at her. She seemed calm for someone that was about to get into major trouble. Much too calm...

"As far as I can tell, no. There has been no contact between Mister Zeklos and Miss Hathaway. And I have several eye witnesses saying that the attack was unprovoked.

I looked at Rose again. Why would she do this? She knew that she would get caught if there was several witnesses at the time. And there was no motive. So why would she pull a stunt like this right before...the ski trip. That was it! She way trying to get kicked off of the list so she wouldn't have to spend time with me. Well two could play at that game.

"So you called me in here to issue a punishment?" I asked looking back at Principal Kirova.

"Yes and no. As Rose's mentor, you of course have the best insight as to what punishment would best make her learn her lesson," Kirova said with a smile that I would have to call evil. I hadn't believed Rose when she told me before, but it seemed that Kirova really did hate her.

"But I have already decided that she will be banned from the ski trip with the rest of her classmates. And instead be made to stay here and do cleaning," Kirova said looking happy with the outcome.

Yep. Evil.

It took every bit of my self control to keep my guardian mask on my face. No. No! She couldn't do this to me! I needed Rose to go on this trip so I could prove to her how much I loved her!

But I kept my face impassive and instead used this to my advantage. I cleared my throat and hoped that I could fake my way through a conversation as good as Rose.

"Actually Headmistress Kirova, I believe that that would be the exact opposite of what we should do," I said trying to figure out where I was going with this. Kirova just raised one eyebrow and leaned back in her chair.

"Explain."

"Well...I...Rose did this because she obviously lacks...self control."

"And letting her go on this trip will help improve that?" she asked not sounding convinced.

"Yes it will. Or rather what she will be doing on this trip will..." It was now or never. Think Dimitri! "Well... before, Rose was going to do some training with me on some of the days and then have free time with her friends for the month. But now I think that she should have half of the day with me for the first two weeks. And then we will go out to a little isolated cabin in the mountains for some intense training. I think that that is what Rose needs. Not to just sit out and feel like a social misfit. Or she will do something like this again just to get attention."

I really hoped that Kirova went for this because that was all I had. Also it was more than I could have ever hoped for. Two whole weeks with just me and Roza. She would take me back for sure...I hoped.

"I see. You make a strong argument Mister Belikov. And none of the punishments that I have come up with seen to have worked. I think that this training exercises will be a valuable life lesson for Miss Hathaway."

I had to fight hard to keep the smile off my face. Which wasn't hard when Rose spoke up.

"What! I have to spent two week alone with him in some creepy old cabin? You can't do that to me, I'll go crazy!"

Her words hurt me more than she knew. I knew the memory of what I had said to her hurt her everyday but was it really causing her pain just to be in the same room as me?

"I can and I have Miss Hathaway. Now go and pack your things. The bus leaves tomorrow."

Rose got up and stormed out. I left after her but didn't follow. And as I saw her walk down the hall, I let the smile slide on to my face. A whole month with her and two whole weeks alone. I could hardly wait.

**Well that blew up in Roza's face now didn't it?**

**what do you think is going to happen with there training?**

**And what will Rose do to make sure that it dosnt go well?**

**pleases review,theres only three more days of the contest!**

**Written in support of Frostbite2015. 1. 5 Million Words Challenge open until 3rd September**


	3. Chapter 3

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_"I can and I have Miss Hathaway. Now go and pack your things. The bus leaves tomorrow."_

Rose got up and stormed out. I left after her but didn't follow. And as I saw her walk down the hall, I let the smile slide on to my face. A whole month with her and two whole weeks alone. I could hardly wait.  


RPOV

I can't believe it! How was it that I could get in trouble on a daily basis without even trying, but the one time I set out to get detention for a month, Dimitri comes in riding to the rescue like in one of his westerners?

I couldn't believe he was doing this to me! I'm not just a pretty face, I know EXACTLY what he's up to: getting me out of trouble so I wouldn't get banned from the ski trip, making it so I had to spend more time with him than before. He's trying to win me back.

Well I was going to make sure that that didn't happen. I mean with what does that guy get off? First treating me all kind and sweet and making it impossible not to fall for him, then kissing me like that on the night of the lust charm, and then telling me that he does love me but still wants to put his job first. And _then_ after all of that, he has the nerve to try to take it back! What does he expect me to do, run to his open arms and give him my heart for him to break all over again?

Well too bad for him, because it doesn't matter what he says or does on this stupid trip, I am not going to fall for Dimitri again. My heart barely survived the first time.

I went back to my room and decided that I had better start packing. Even though I was going to have to spend most of the time with my new least favorite person, I was still going to try to have some fun. But as I looked at my clothes, I realized that I didn't have much in the way of winter wear. I guess that I could rent some coats when I got there...

Then I had an evil idea. Dimitri wanted to get me back, so chances are that we wouldn't be doing _that_ much training. So why not torture him a bit by showing him what he can't touch?

I immediately set to work on finding my most skimpiest and sexiest clothing. I put in some regular clothes too, for when I was hanging out with my friends. But when I was alone with Dimitri, I would pull out all the stops. He wanted to get some time alone with me. Well, he was going to be getting more than he bargained for.

DPOV

I was up and ready for the trip long before anyone else was even out of bed yet. I know I have a tendency to rise early and get to places before I had to be there. And today I was even more so. There was just no point laying in bed any longer because I surely wasn't going to be getting any more sleep. Today was the day, after we arrived and everyone was assigned a room and had a chance to settle in, I was allowed to go and collect Roza for our first day of training.

I had to keep reminding myself that I had to start slow. I couldn't come right out and say how sorry I was and how I wanted her to take me back, no, I had to start out like this was just an ordinary training session.

Since I was so early, no one was at the bus yet. So because I didn't have anything else to do, I walked into the school's cafeteria and got out my book. I started reading, but I couldn't really focus on the plot. My mind kept going back to all the times that Roza would catch me reading and tease me about my obsession with the old west.

Flashback

_"Comrade, why do you keep reading those books? Was it so cold and boring in Russia that you had to fantasize about a warmer place to get through the day?"_

I had to fight a smile at that. I had told her time and time again that Russia wasn't the arctic wasteland that she thought it was.

"I just like how clean and simple things were back then. It was all black and white, no gray areas to worry about."

She gave a thoughtful look. "That's why you became a Guardian isn't it? You're the good guy and the Strigoi are the bad guys."  
  
End flashback

That had only been our first month together,and even then she could see things about me that people that had known me for years couldn't see. My Roza was special. And I had to get her back -

"Hello Guardian Belikov," said a voice beside me. I jumped a little, but I doubt that anybody besides my Roza would have been able to tell.

"Guardian Hathaway, what a surprise," I said as Rose's mother sat down next to me. "I didn't know that you were coming for a visit." She just shrugged her shoulders.

"My charge gave me the holidays off and I thought that maybe if I was in Rose's life some more, then she might stop acting out."

"So you heard about what Rose did to Jesse?"

"Yes, and I'm grateful to you for offering to take time out of your schedule to try and help her." A sad look crossed her face while she said, "Maybe if I had done that sooner then she might have not ran away."

I think she would have ran no matter what, but I didn't say anything. If Roza wasn't over exaggerating, then this was the first time in years that Janine had shown that she wanted to be a part of Rose's life. And I wasn't going to try to make her feel less guilty if this meant that Janine might come to her senses and give Rose the loving relationship with her mother that I knew that she desperately wanted but was too tough and proud to ask for. Instead I would suggest something to help both of them, hopefully.

"It isn't too late to fix that. Rose is still young, you can still be there for her," I said gently. If there was one thing that Rose had taught me, it was just how stubborn the Hathaways could be. If I flat out told her that she was doing a bad job at being a mother then she would burn up and give me the silent treatment for the rest of the trip.

But if I simply implanted the idea in her head, then she would think about it and act out of her own free will.

"The school is still looking for chaperones for this trip. This could be just the chance you need to reconnect with Rose," I hoped she said yes. I had already hurt Roza so much, I wanted to do anything in my power to make her life better. And that included the near impossible task of trying to fix her relationship with her mother.

I could see her thinking about it. "That might be a good start," she said to herself. Then she nodded like she had come to a decision and stood up.

"Thank you for your suggestion Guardian Belikov. I will go and talk to Principal Kirova right now."

"Happy to help." And she walked away.

I just hope that I didn't put another nail in my own coffin when Roza found out that this had been my doing.

RPOV

I threw my alarm clock at the wall before I even realized that I was awake. Damn, this was even earlier than I had to be up for training. I muttered about evil alarm clocks and their never ending quest to make me get up on time as I crawled out of bed. I decided to dress normally and save torturing Dimitri until later. So I just threw on a red tank top and some skinny jeans. For once I had actually packed on time instead of leaving everything until the last minute, but that had mostly been because of my evil plan. So I was actually up, dressed, and down at the cafeteria at a reasonable hour.

"Wow I must still be dreaming, because there is no way that Rose Hathaway is up and ready BEFORE the last call to get on the bus," laughed Mason. He was definitely my best friend, but sadly he wanted to be more. I just hoped that he didn't harbor any secret fantasies about getting me alone and romancing me until I fell for him. I put on my 'man eater smile' as I walked over to the table

"Well you know, the earlier I get here, the more food I can eat until we have to leave."

"Only you could be hungry at this hour," joked Eddie as I got food and sat down. "So what do you guys want to do on this trip?" I asked as I ate.

"DEFINITELY some skiing. But I want to try snowboarding as well," said Mason as he watched me eat. Meh, I was awake, I was breathing, so why wouldn't I be eating?

"What about you?" Eddie asked me. I just shrugged my shoulders. The only thing I wanted to do was get some time away from Dimitri, but that clearly wasn't going to happen.

"Well since I'm going to be stuck training with the _mentornater_ I don't really know what I will have time to do. But I guess I was to do some skiing and soak in an open air hot tub." That sounded like heaven to me right now.

"Oh yeah, I heard about what you did to Jesse. I can't say that I'm going to lose any sleep over it though. The guy had it coming," said Christian as he appeared out of nowhere with a plate of food for him and Lissa to share.

"Aaaw thanks for coming to my defense Chrissy, but I can fight my own battles," I said without too much sarcasm. He has actually agreeing with me for once. I didn't trust it.

"I mean just because she wanted to have a valid excuse to strip Jesse down to his underwear and smear him with honey, we don't have to judge." And that's why.

"You had better watch it firefly, or you might not come back from this trip." I threatened. I was in a bit of a murderous state right now. And him pushing my buttons wasn't going to do either of us any good.

"Stop baiting Rose Christian. You know that Jesse got what he deserved, just leave it at that," Lissa said. After seeing how much trouble I had gone to to try to get kicked off of the trip, it had finally dawned on Lissa why I didn't want to go. Being the friend that she was, she offered to compel Kirova into changing her mind and not making me go. But I already had enough darkness in me as it was.

So I was just going to suck it up and get through this trip. I put on a fake smile and said. "What are you going to do Lissa?" And she immediately launched into a whole list of things that she wanted to do and that I only got every second word. I was actually glad for her insistent babbling, it kept the focus off of me.

-

After breakfast, it was time to call the roll and get on the busses. Of course, I sat next to Lissa, but unfortunately that also meant that fire crotch sat behind us.

"Do we really have to sit next to her for the whole trip?" he whined.

"In case you didn't notice, Lissa is sitting next to me! No one is making you sit here and certainly no one is making you stay," I said with a bit too much venom.

"Whatever, I'm going to go and see what Mason and Eddie are doing." he said as he got up and left. Lissa pulled me close after he left.

_"Listen Rose, there's something I've got to tell you," _she said through the bond. It must be some thing important or very private for her to be using it now.

"What is it Liss?" I whispered in her ear.

_"I overheard some guardians talking about a new chaperon for our trip,"_ she said and then she paused.

_"_Who is it Liss? you can tell me?" Dimitri was already going, who else could possible be worse?

_"Your mother."_

apparently is could

"What is she doing here?" I asked a little more loudly then I meant.

"_I don't know. All I head was that Dimitri invited her, I don't know why."  
_  
Dimitri told her to come? "Why would he do this to me?Did he really want me to suffer more on this trip than I already was?"

_"I think it was just a suggestion, but apparently she took it." _

Wow! If he was trying to win me back then he was doing a lousy job of it so far. My mother didn't know the meaning of the word. I leaned back in my set and groaned in frustration. How could this trip get any worse?"

"Alright everyone listen up. We're about to get going and before we do I want to go over some rules with you."

Stan Alto was on this bus! Great? it just got worse. I really had to stop asking that, who knows what could happen next. I decided to try to drown him out and turned on my iPod and put my headphones in. This was going to be one long bus ride.

-

What felt like a life time later, we finally arrived. I couldn't wait to get out of this bus and stretch my legs. I had spent way too much time in close proximity with Christian. It looked like a really beautiful place. But that really wasn't much of a surprised, with all the royal Moroi that went to S. Vlad's, the school could afford it. The ski lodge was an old building that had obviously be done up. From the outside, it looked like a beautiful winter castle. Kind of like something out of Frozen.

I took my headphones out of my ears so I could hear what was going on.

"-assigned a roommate so I don't want to hear any complaining."

Oh crap! We didn't get to pick our roommates! What if I got assigned to that bitch Camille! I held my breath as Alberta read out the pairs. She liked me right? She wouldn't pair me with Camille right?

"- and Vasilisa will room with Rose." YES! Boy, I really dodged a bullet with that one. Between getting assigned more time with Dimitri and my mother appearing out of nowhere, I don't think I could handle any more surprises today.

I grabbed my bag and went to go and find my room. I had just found it and was about to unlock the door.

When I found out another little nasty surprise.

"You're staying in the room next to me?" I asked Dimitri, outraged! He was just arriving at his room too. This was just too good. If we had of been together, we couldn't have pulled this off if we tried. But since we weren't, of course we had to be thrown together at every available opportunity!

"Did you arrange this?!" I said accusingly as I walked over to him. I had to keep my voice down in case anybody was listening. I wanted to keep my rejection private, thank you.

Dimitri actually looked a little guilty as he nodded. "I convinced Alberta that it was best for me to keep an eye in you since you lashed out at Jesse yesterday."

Great, in the act of doing something to get AWAY from Dimitri, I had inadvertently worked toward not only getting more time with him. But I was now going to have him literally right next to me for the whole trip! How did I get so lucky? I decided not got get in a conversation with him and just walked away.

"You have your first training session with me in two hours Rose," he said to me as I turned away. Without turning around to look at him I said.

"I'll be ready Guardian Belikov." Suddenly he was right behind me and turned me around to face him.

"You don't have to be so cold to me Rose, the reason that I'm doing this is so we can start over. I know what I said hurt you. But-"

"Yes it did! And I don't want to relive it! Just stay out of my way and I'll stay out of yours," I said as I opened my door and slammed it in his face. It didn't help to see the hurt look on it before the door closed. I knew he probably was sorry for hurting me, but if he started being nice to me again, then I wouldn't be able to keep myself from being a bitch to him and I would fall for him and the whole circle would just start over again.

It would be better, for both of us, if that didn't happen. I let out a sigh as I threw myself on my bed. This was going to be a long month. For both of us. 

**Oh what do you think Dimitri is going to go when he sees Roses 'new' work out cloths?**

**what do you think Rose is going to torture him with next?**

**And how many of you are going to favourite me before I update next? **

**Wait and see:) **


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry I take so long to update,but I really need to finish my other story "just like old times" **

**after its done done I will focus on this I promise:) **

_It would be better, for both of us if that didn't happen. I let out a sigh as I threw myself on my bed. This was going to be a long month. For both of us.  
_

RPOV

After unpacking and telling Lissa about our unwanted neighbour, I was in my winter workout gear and ready to go. Lissa had seen the clothes I had been unpacking and raised her eyebrow at my choices. Could everyone on the face of the earth do that but me?

"It's his payback. I want him to see what he missed out on having," I said, not wanting to get to deep into my reasons. Because another reason for me doing this was I just couldn't shake the need to see that he did find me attractive and wanted me. I knew that wasn't the reason why he turned me down, but it would still make me feel better to walk into the room and see his eyes widen when he saw what I was wearing.

"Ooh you're being really bad Rose," Lissa said as she watched me put on makeup and fluff my hair. I knew she was on my side in this, but I could also tell through the bond that she thought that I was being mean and that I should give Dimitri another chance.

I shrugged my shoulders. "He was the one that wanted to have extra training sessions with me, so it's his own fault if he can't handle what I have in store for him."

"Still...you could at least try to be friends again, after all you will both be my guardians one day," Lissa said as she stretched out on the bed.

Yeah, believe me I hadn't forgotten. I don't know what we well do when that time comes, but hopefully by then, he would have either given up on trying to win me back and we can be cold and professionals to each other or I would have given him so much grief that he requests a change of charge. I didn't want to admit that to Lissa and make her think of ways to get us back together. She liked Dimitri and I know that she still thinks that we would be perfect for each other, but I wasn't going to let that happen.

"That's true...but I can still give him hell before that happens," I said as I took one last look in the mirror to make sure I was good to go. Over the top, I had a long sleeved jacket that I could train in without too much trouble and some long winter pants. I knew Dimitri would make me train at first and try to keep this casual until I let down my guard so I was being practical until the time was right.

Underneath, I had on one of my small and tight t shirts and very tight skinny jeans that were insulated. I wanted to torture Dimitri, not myself.

"Bye Liss," I called out as I went next door and knocked on Dimitri's door. A minute later, he answered. He looked over what I was wearing and nodded. He started walking without saying a word and I followed, equally happy to keep the silence.

We went outside and walked for about ten minutes and I was really getting cold when we finally came to our destination. It was a frozen over lake.

"What do you expect me to practice here? Ice skating?" I said with more sarcasm than needed.

"More or less," was all Dimitri said before stepping onto the ice and started moving around. How the hell was he doing that without ice skates!?

"Proper balance when you are in a fight can mean the difference between life and death. By finding your balance on an unstable surface you will be able to find it quicker and hold on to it longer when you're in combat, especially when you don't have time to think about it," he said as he moved around in graceful circles even doing a jump and landing on one foot.

I had to hand it to him, he was good. I slowly stepped onto the ice and almost fell over right away. Damn this was slippery!

"You need to transition your weight evenly or you will fall," Dimitri said as he came over to me holding out his hand to help me onto the ice. I wanted to ignore it and do it myself but I knew I would just fall over right away and hurt myself and I would probably be stuck in a cast for the whole trip and I couldn't run away from Dimitri anymore.

I took his out stretched hand and silently cursed at feeling the small electric shock that I felt whenever we touched and slowly moved both feet onto the ice lake. Dimitri nodded his head.

"Good, now slowly move you're weight onto one of your legs and push forward with it, but slowly at first until you get the hang of it."

I did as he said and I slowly started sliding forward, it was hard and awkward at first, but after a while I got the hang of it and went a little bit faster.

After about an hour of that and getting some real speed by the end of it, Dimitri called for a break and led us over to a little hut near the lake. It was meant for shade in the summer, but it worked equally well for shelter in the winter.

"You did well. Next we will move to an area where the snow isn't fully frozen, it's more of a slushy than snow fall. You will have to be able to move and fight in it, which will be harder than it sounds. Not only will it be slippery and hard to ground in, it will also slow you down, like fighting in a pool of water so all of your kicks will only be at half power."

I nodded at that, it actually sounded like a good idea. So far things were going ok. He hadn't brought up anything that had made me want to slap him or tried to make me listen to another one of his heart felt apologies/ getting back together speeches. If things kept going this smoothly than I might not have to unleash my secret weapon.

"It's Paul's birthday today," he said sounding casual, and here we go again! He knows how much I loved hearing about his family. I knew it couldn't last. But I played along.

"Really? He turned eleven right?" I asked as I causally unzipped my winter coat.

"Yeah, and he's getting so tall I swear, next time I see him he will be-" he never finished the sentience. I had taken off my coat and was just wearing a little top. I could see his eyes bug out and his jaw drop a bit. Yeah, he wanted me. Even if he lied about anything else, I knew that this was true. I felt like I had more power now, like he couldn't try anything when I was sitting here looking so hot.

"Yeah, he will be as tall as a tree when you see him next," I said as I started stretching and moving my shoulders back and forth. I could see his eyes bugging and I shot him my man eater smile. He didn't respond.

"You're drooling," I said and laughed a bit when he wiped his chin. Man this was too easy.

"Roza -"

"We should get back to training, we don't want to cool down too much," I said as I grabbed my coat and got up. I think he was in shock after what I did because he didn't get up behind me.

"Hey, you frozen or something?" I laughed. He shook his head and came after me. We went over to where the snow was mush and started sparing. It was indeed much harder to move in this mush than it was in snow. I felt like I was dragging my feet the entire time.

"Pick your feet up higher before you move, but don't jump. Always keep one foot on the ground at all times. If a Strigoi caters you when you air born then he can throw you clear across a room," Dimitri said as he dodged another one of my punches. I ducked under one of his and went for an upper cut, but he was too fast and moved out of the way and I almost went face first into the mush.

After about two hours of this, Dimitri call it. "Your morning classes are over. You now have four hours of free time before your afternoon classes start," he said coldly, but I could see his eyes traveling down to my chest, remembering what I was wearing under it.

"You might want to put something warmer on than that," he said, his eyes darkening again. I gave him a cheeky grin.

"Why? I'm hot enough already," I said and winked at him before I left. Maybe spending so much time with Dimitri wouldn't be so bad after all.

DPOV

She would be the death of me without a doubt. I thought I had been so clever. Keeping it professional, doing training, then taking a little break and causally bring up my family. Just to get her talking.

But it seems that I wasn't the only one with a plan. I mean there was no other reason for Rose to be walking around in that little top in the snow. She had obviously put it on in an attempt to throw me off guard if I tried anything with her. And it had worked. Roza had a ridiculously sexy body. I remembered how I couldn't keep my hands off of it when I was under the effects of the lust charm. How was I supposed to keep my eyes off of her now?

I sighed and reminded myself that it had only been our first training session. And we had another one this afternoon. She would get over her anger and then I could start winning her back.

I was debating what do do first with our evening training session when Rose knocked on my door. I opened it and led her over to the sky lift. We would do some high intensity running, then sparring. That should wear her out enough for me to get a few words in edge wise.

We got on the ski lift and I looked out over the mountains as we went higher and higher. It really was beautiful out here.

"Look at that view," Roza said as the same time I was thinking it. We were so in sync, even when she was trying not to be.

"I just love how open and free it is out here, you can look anywhere for miles and only see great white plains of snow," I muttered lost in the landscape. "It's a bit like the old west, just you and the land anyway you look."

Roza snorted. "You would see it that way cowboy," she said with an eye role. But I wasn't discouraged. It was the first time she had called me anything other than Guardian Belikov, or Dimitri with a hateful voice. Her sarcastic "cowboy" was like a light to my dark day.

I smiled and tried to play along. "Well it's no mall that you can waste way too much good money on but-"

"HEY I don't go to the mall that much! It was mostly Lissa wanting to go and me protecting her," Rose defended herself.

"And I'm sure that you absolutely hated getting all of those new shoes and outfits that Lissa forced on you to," I said raising one eyebrow.

"Well I looked damn good in them," she said with a cocky smile.

I gave her one of my full smiles that I knew she loved. "No denying that," I said with a bit of mischief. We got off the ski lift and warmed up before our run.

"This will be like running on dry sand. Your foot will slip and you will use muscles that you don't normally," I told her before we started.

"And I bet I will be hurting muscles that I didn't know even know I had," Rose said sarcastically before we set off.

After we reached the bottom of the slopes, we did high contact sparring. Rose was already adapting to the change in climate and moving smoother through the show, she even landed a few good hits on me. By the time we were finished Rose was panting and breathing heard. I had come off a bit better, this being my native habitat. But I was still breaking a sweat. I unzipped my coat and threw it on the ground before we sat down. The sun was setting and it was a very romantic view. And I needed all the help I could get.

"You did well today Rose," I said as she unzipped her jacket to and sat beside me. But luckily for me she had changed shirts since this morning. Now it was just a plain t shirt.

"Well I know Lissa will want to take ski holidays in the future, so I had better learn how to defend her properly."

We sat and watched the sun set together for a while before I spoke. "You know we will have to find a way to work together in the future when we're both Lissa's guardians right?" I asked giving her a side look.

She put on her best Guardian mask and shrugged her shoulders. "Were working together now. What's so different?" she asked in a cold voice.

"Because you're still mad at me and that's not a good way to start a working relationship," I said keeping my voice calm. Rose had a real temper and if I raised my voice even slightly, then I would be facing it.

"I'll be near guard, you be far guard. We tell each other about any possible threats and protect Lissa with our lives. What's so complicated about that?" she said he voice now matching the snow around us with it's coldness. But I could tell that she was just trying to hide her hurt, hurt that I had caused.

"You know it won't be as easy as that. One day you will need to let down your shields that your hiding behind and talk to me. Only then can you move forward with your life and leave the past behind where it belongs," I told her looking her in the eyes, I missed talking to her so much it hurt. She was the only one that truly understood me. And without her, I found myself terribly lonely. I took a chance and wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her close. She didn't push me away. My pulse picked up at that. I was finally getting through to her!

"The shields are there for a reason, because of you! I never let anyone in my heart before you and you broke it. So that's it! No second chances, no do overs! And if I let them down then I will get hurt again," she said pushing my arm off of her shoulders and looking away to hide the tears that I knew were about to fall.

"So if you're done with your fortunate cookie Zen life lessons, I have to go," she said and ran off. I fell back into the snow and looked up at the now dark sky. This was going to be tougher than I thought.

RPOV

I ran back to my room and threw myself on the bed. Why oh why did he have to be so hard to resist! Every fibber of my body was crying out to me to run into his arms. But at the same time my heart was crying out to me not to brake it again. It was sad really. I fell head over heals in love with him and he tells me to get lost. Now he's the one that's got it bad for me and I'm telling him to take a hike. Why couldn't we ever be on the same page!

Lissa came in a few hours later and found me in a mess of blankets. "Are you ok?" she asked me softly. I had gotten most of it out of my system now so I was able to give her a weak smile.

"Yeah, it will get easier after a few days, don't worry about me."

"Well I have something that might cheer you up," Lissa said sounding excited. I smiled despite myself.

"And what might that be?"

"We're going to the royal in door hot tubs!"

"Really? How did you manage that?" They were pretty exclusive, I'm sure Lissa could get in, but me?

"I met this really cute guy who knows the guy in charge and he said that we can all go tonight!" Lissa squealed and bounce up and down in the bed.

"We can all? Who else is coming?"

"Mason, Eddie, Mia, Christian, you and me."

"Mia?" I asked. We had patched things up after I broke her nose, but still...I didn't think she would be game to spend much time with me. She was probably just in it for the hot tubs.

"Yes, there will also be Adrian's cousin Jill coming."

"Who's Adrian?" I asked, she really had to slow down when she speaks.

"The cute guy that is getting us into the hot tubs," Lissa said squealing and bouncing up and down again.

"Ok! Ok! I'll go just stop piercing my eardrums!" I cried out as I got up and changed into my bikini. It was a deep red that looked great with my skin tone and while definitely sexy, it wasn't overly revealing. I didn't want to torture poor Mason anymore than I had to.

Five minutes later and we were down there with the rest of our group about to be let in.

"I'm so excited, these hot tubs are supposed to do wonders for your skin," Mia said to Lissa, sounding friendly. I guess that those two had gotten closer than I thought when I had been dealing with the whole Dimitri thing.

"I know and it is supposed to revitalize and -"

"And give me a chance to see all you lovely lady's bikinis," said a guy that showed up behind us. I was ready to tell him where to go when Lissa squealed next to me.

"Oh Adrian thank you so much for letting us do this."

So this was Adrian huh? Well with that messy rockstar hair and those deep green eyes, it was easy to see why Lissa had called him hot. He definitely fit the criteria.

"All in a days work," he said happily, but then his eyes looked over at me. I had a light dress in over my bikini so he couldn't see to much, but I still didn't like the way his eyes roamed over my body. Neither did Mason from the look he was giving Adrian.

"Well let's get in there," I said breaking the tension. Adrian smiled at me and walked over to unlock the door. Yep, he was going to be trouble.

**ooooo Adrian's on the seen and is eyeing up Rose. How do you think Dimitri is going to react to that when he finds out?**

**review and I will update faster! **


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I will update this story more now that Just Like Old a Times is finished. But I still don't own VA**

_"Well let's get in there," I said breaking the tension. Adrian smiled at me and walked over to unlock the door. Yep, he was going to be trouble._

RPOV

After we all went in, the girls took off our cover dresses and the guys all checked us out. But I was happy to see that Mason was actually checking Mia out. I looked over to her and saw her blush before getting into the hot tub. Well that solved one problem. I thought as I looked over at Eddie, who's eyes were popping out of his skull looking at the girl that I assumed was Jill. Wow! Two for two! I thought as I looked over at Adrian, who I thought would have been checking me out for sure. And I was right. He was looking me up and down like any normal guy would.

But there was so something off about it. Like he was admiring the view, but not in a "look at that piece of meat" look that most guys would be wearing. It was like he was doing it on autopilot or something. I shrugged my shoulders and got into the water. It was the perfect temperature, I just melted in and let out a sigh.

After a long day of training, I was sore and tired and not to mentioned emotionally exhausted. So I didn't bother joining the others in their conversation. I just sat back, closed my eyes and relaxed. I think I dosed off for a bit, because when I opened my eyes again some of the others were gone.

"Where did Lissa, Mia and Sparky go?" I asked Adrian, who was the closest to me.

"Out to get food, the water has that affect on some Moroi," he said floating over to me.

"They went to get food without me?!" I asked shocked! Everybody knows how much I loved food.

Adrian chuckled. "Is it really that big a deal?" he asked in a lazy voice. I shot an evil glare.

"You really don't know me at all," I said. He just laughed.

"Well I know you're different," he said looking at me a bit more intently.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Was this his attempt at hitting on me? I thought he would be a bit smoother than this.

"I mean there's this darkness around your aura that's not normally around other people," he said looking not quite at me, more like around me.

"You can see my aura? How?" Was he actually serious? Or was this still his sorry attempt at flirting with me?

"I specialize in a very rare element called spirit. And one of my gifts is I can see auras. But you already know all about spirit don't you?" he asked with a lazy grin.

"And why would I know that?" I asked keeping my face blank. There was no way Lissa told him about her.

"Because I can see it in your friend's aura. And I can see that you two are bonded."

Well there went all my cards in this game. "Then how come you don't know why my aura is darker than others?" I challenged.

"Well my guess would be because you're sucking the darkness out of her," he said. Hm, that actually made sense.

"If you're so smart then do you know a way that I can get rid of it?" Lissa's darkness was making matters with Dimitri worse, if I had a clear head than maybe I could get through a conversation with him without shouting and running off.

But he just shook his head. "Sorry, I don't have any experience in that field. But I might be able to talk to Lissa about some stuff, compare notes about being spirit users, if you wouldn't mind of course?" he said showing me a devil may care smile.

"Well, you are the first spirit user that we've ever come across..." I said and he smiled. "BUT, you hurt her and I swear that I will bury you in a pit so deep and dark that you will never see the light of day again," I growled. No way was I going to let Lissa be taken advantage of again like she had been with Victor.

Adrian held up his hands. "Ok ok message received," Just then the others came back after their food run and I shouted out.

"You have better brought me back something or count spark-curlers head is going to roll."

"Sorry Rosie, but I got hungry on our way back here so I had to sacrifice your bitch bag," Christian said with a smirk.

"Oh be nice you two," Lissa said as she handed me the food and Adrian gave me a wink before floating over to talk to Lissa. Well at least now Lissa wasn't alone in this whole spirit thing. I wonder if Adrian know any other spirit users?

Lissa and Adrian talked together for the rest of the night and looked like they were having a ball. Good, at least one of us is happy. It was only after Lissa couldn't form a complete sentence without yawning that I decided that it was bed time.

"Come on Liss, if you keep this up you will fall asleep in the hot tub and that won't end well." I said as I got up - and almost fell over. Whoa dizzy spell, I must have been affected by the heat more than I thought.

"Are you alright there Little Dhampir?" Adrian asked. What a stupid nickname.

"I'm ok, I just got up too quickly," I said pulling myself together.

"I think I should walk you two to your rooms, in case one of you passes out on the way." Adrian said, and it was an obvious innuendo. But for some reason I didn't think he meant it as one. Adrian was a bit of a mystery to me. He seemed like the classic play boy type that leaves a string of one night stands and broken hearts in his wake. But the way he was only half heartily hitting on me and that he really does seem worried about us getting to our rooms made me think twice.

"Sure," I said shrugging, I didn't think I needed the help, but what the hell, he was fun to talk to. He helped Lissa out of the hot tub and we started to our room without bothering to put our cover dresses back on. We were just going to get out of them the minute we got back to our room anyway.

"So how long are you two staying here?" Adrain asked as we walked alone the halls.

"A month, with the rest of our class," Lissa said causally.

"That's great!" Adrian said with real enthusiasm. "That gives us plenty of time to work on spirit together."

I rolled my eyes and kept walking. But as we were nearing our door, I suddenly got dizzy again. I swayed a bit and Adrian grabbed me around the waist to steady me. After a few seconds I got my balance back and looked up at him with a smile. He hadn't even tried to cope a feel.

"Thank -"

"What is going on here!" I heard an angry voice yell, and looked over to see an angry looking Dimitri storming over to us.

"Rose got a little dizzy and I was just giving her a hand," Adrian said, not the least bit worried at the 6'7 angry Russian that was shooting daggers at him. He just smiled his devil may care smile and looked back at me.

"It was my pleasure, trust me," I held back the giggle that I felt coming when I heard Dimitri's angry growl. I looked over to him and saw that he was fighting the urge to forcefully remove Adrian's hands from around my waist.

"If you don't get you hands of my...student I will have to report you to the principal," Dimitri said clenching his teeth.

"Lay off him _Guardian_ Belikov," I said emphasising his title because I knew he hated it. Then I thought of something equally evil to do to him. I straightened myself up in Adrian's arms and grabbed Lissa's hand.

"Thanks for the help Adrian. See you tomorrow?" I said in a flirtatious tone of voice.

His eyes were flickering back and forth between Dimitri and I as if looking for something on our faces. But he quickly looked back at me and flashed me a winning smile. "I wouldn't miss it for the world." I leaned close and gave him a quick peck on the cheek

...right in front of Dimitri.

As I pulled away I glanced at Dimitri and gave a smirk. Ooooh he didn't like that.

"Bye," I said before shutting the door in his face.

"Rose why did you do that?" Lissa asked in a whisper- shout voice. "Are you finally getting over Dimitri?" She asked curiously.

I shook my head. "No, I don't think I ever will, but Adrian is pretty hot, so I thought I would piss off Dimitri by kissing him. I'm sure he didn't mind."

"That's true, but just make sure that you don't take it too far and hurt Adrian's feelings. He might really care for you," Lissa said in a concerned voice.

"Don't worry Liss, I've caused enough trouble for a lifetime when it comes to boys," I said as I headed to the shower to wash off the hot tub smell. Then I crawled into bed and fell asleep.

Or so I thought.

Adrain's POV

Rose shut the door in my face, and I was immediately faced with a really scary looking guardian.

"Stay away from Roza and the princess," he said in a cold voice. Roza huh? Well that just confirmed it.

I smiled lazily. "Oh I'll stay away from her. But she might not stay away from me." Ohhh he did NOT like that. I saw his aura go bright green and red. Yep, jealousy and anger. I knew something was off about his and Rose's aura when thay saw each other. Rose's aura turned golden for love, with an outline of red for anger and hurt. While his had turned a bright gold at seeing her and then turned both green and red at seeing me with my arm wrapped around her waist. There was definitely something going on with them.

"Maybe I should have made myself more clear," he said his voice going even deeper and quite scary. "You WILL stay away for Rose and the princess, or I will make you." A guardian threatening a Moroi! Wow, Rose must be some girl.

"I think that's up to the two lovely ladies don't you?" I asked and walked away before his anger got the best of him and he actually did punch me like he wanted to.

I walked back to my room in a pretty good mood. Rose may have been just the thing that I have been waiting for.

RPOV

I was standing on the balcony of the ski lodge. Well at least my dream had a nice view. I looked down at myself and saw that I was in some comfy casual looking clothes and wondered why.

"I didn't think you would appreciate me making you come here wearing your bikini. Not that it wouldn't have been an equally beautiful view," said a voice form behind me! I turned around and saw Adrian. Wow, he must have left more of an impression then I thought.

"Why am I dreaming of you? You're not that hot," I said without even thinking about it. I was about to apologize, when I realized that this was just a dream and he wouldn't give a damn about me insulting him.

"You wound me with your words little Dhampir," he said dramatically putting his hands over his heart. "And I asure you, this is not a dream."

I raised one eyebrow- or tried to anyway. HEY if this is my dream than why can't I do what I want to?

"What do you mean it's not a dream? I went to bed and fell asleep, and now I'm standing with you in the middle of the day wearing clothes that I didn't put on and am having a conversation that I wouldn't have if I were awake. I would call that the definition of a dream," I said enjoying a chance to talk nonsense about something for a change. Things were too serious in my life right now.

"It would seem so yes. But you forget little Dhampir, that I'm a spirit user."

"And so is Lissa, and I'm bonded with her, so how does that have anything to do with this not being a dream?" I said again trying to raise one eyebrow. Damn!

"Because where Lissa's skills lay in healing and compulsion, mine lay in reading auras and dream walking. Which we are doing now."

"Dream walking? What's that?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Exactly what it sounds like. We're both asleep right now, but we're both here too. This conversation is actually happening and we will both remember it tomorrow when we wake up."

Well this was new. But if I could believe in being brought back from the dead by my best friend than I guess I could believe this too.

"Oook, so why are you invading my dreams when we saw each other only about an hour ago?" I asked hoping that this wasn't about me kissing him of the cheek to get at Dimitri.

"Well...you see..." he let out a huff of air. "There's no easy way of saying this so I will just spit it out. I saw yours and Guardian Belikov's aura. I know that you're in love."

"I am not!" I said trying to deny it but knowing it was pointless. "Not anymore," I said quieter.

"Yes I could see that there was some anger and hurt in there as well. And a bunch of anger and jealousy in your cradle robbers too. I don't suppose you want to talk about it?" he asked sounding genuine.

"I wanted to be with him, he said no, that's all there is to it," I said not looking at him.

"We both know that that's not the whole story, but it doesn't really matter. You don't have to tell me anything that you don't want to. But what I'm trying to say is that I need your help."

I raised both of my eyebrows this time. "And why should I help you?" I said crossing my arms.

"Because if that kiss you gave me earlier is any indication, you either want to make Belikov jealous, or you want to make it clear to him about how you have moved on. Anyway that's none of my business. What I want to talk to you about is how we might be able to help each other."

"How? Why? What are you on about?" I asked getting real confused now. First he tells me that he knows about my train wreak love life, now he said that he can do something to help me with it without even knowing what went on.

"Well you see, I come from a very prominent line of Moroi. I'm actuly Queen Tatiana's great nephew," he said not sounding as arrogant as he could have.

"Is that supposed to impress me?" I asked my voice dripping with sarcasm.

"No, it's supposed to help you understand for what I'm going to ask you. Anyway, because of who I am and the fact that my parents care far too much about public appearance for their own good, I am severely limited to who I am able to date."

I groaned. "Please tell me that this isn't all some elaborate scheme to make me feel sorry for you and agree to date you, because my love life is messed up enough as it is."

He laughed. "Close, but not quite. You see I just happened to meet and fall head over heals in love with...a human."

"Oh." Human and Moroi relationships were a thing of the past. And so looked down upon now days, to stay in a relationship long term with one was almost illegal. Especially for someone so closely related to royalty.

"Who's the lucky girl?" I asked just to say something. The minute I mentioned her, Adrian's face became all lovey dovey.

"My lily girl, Sydney Sage," he said looking into the distance lovingly, as if looking for her face in a crowd of people.

"She must be some girl to put that look on your face," I said smiling. This made sense. This was why he didn't seem interested in checking me out like he was a player, but wasn't trying to get into my pants. He was whipped!

"Oh she is. But back to the problem at hand. I can't possibly have an open relationship with her, my parents would do something terrible if they found out," he said looking scared for her safety.

"Why don't you just run away with her," I said shrugging my shoulders. Just because my own love story had a bad ending doesn't mean that I want everyone to be as miserable as me.

"Because she's not just a normal human. She's an Alchemists." And there goes the final nail in his coffin.

"You can't be serious! What did you even mean an Alchemists?" I shouted. If this was really a dream, I was glad that I didn't sleep talk.

"Well I was at a bar getting drunk one night when I was attacked by a Strigoi. I managed to get away from him when I ran into her. Apparently a guardian had killed the Strigoi shortly after I ran away and she was sent to take care of the body. We talked as she worked and from that moment on, I was hooked. She soon felt the same for me and that leads us back to what I want to ask you."

"Why can't you just keep it secret? I mean sure your parents will want you to get married some day, but why not just push it off for a few years until you can come up with a plan."

He seemed kind of embarrassed. "Ah...well...you see...I sort of have a reputation as a bit of a ladies man. And if I suddenly just stop and pretend like I'm not interested in dating anymore that that will raise the red flag and my parents would have me followed everywhere until they find out the reason why."

Wow, overprotective much? "So what does all this Romeo and Juliet stuff have to do with me?" I asked wanting him to get to the point already.

He flashed me his winning smile again. "Well I was thinking. You need to make this guy jealous or get him to see your not interested of whatever, and I need to seem like I'm chasing someone so my parents don't get suspicious. So why don't the two of us pretend to be dating," he finished looking proud of himself for thinking of such a plan.

"Won't your parents still be mad that you're dating a Dhampir?" It's not as bad as dating Sydney, but still frowned upon.

"Not as much as if they found out the truth. So what do you say little Dhampir? We both need someone to take the heat off of us and we won't be leading anyone on because we both know that this relationship is a scam."

I but my lip. It was a good idea for him, but would Dimitri seeing me with someone else make him give up on winning me back? Or would it just make him that much more determined to?

"And how far would we have to take this little charade?" I asked to buy myself some more time to make up my mind.

"A little hand holding, some light kissing, some suggestive stuff to make people talk so word spreads. But nothing that will cross the line I promise you."

"And does your Sydney know about this?" Was she really ok with him doing this? I'm not sure I would be if the roles were reversed.

"I told her about it before I asked you. She fine. She knows that she's my one and only." Another dreamy look crossed his face at the mention of his love, did my face used to look like that when I thought about Dimitri?

"So are you in or out?" Adrian asked and waited while I debated. If this worked then Dimitri might forget about me, but if it didn't than he might just get more desperate. Ether way I didn't have much to lose. I was already trapped with him for the foreseeable future, if he thought that I was with Adrian then maybe he might finally transfer to a different charge and leave me alone.

I took a beep breath. "I'm in."

**oooow things are heating up Now!**

**Sooo how will Dimitri handle it when he finds out that Rose has a new man in her life? **

**What will Dimitri do to try and win his Roza back from the hands of Adrain? Stat tuned to find out;)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Thank you to all of you that have followed, favourited and reviewed my story. More to come I promise:) **

**Disclaimer: do we really have to go over this again?**

"_So are you in or out?" _

_Adrian asked and waited while I debated. If this worked then Dimitri might forget about me, but if it didn't than he might just get more desperate. Ether way I didn't have much to lose. I was already trapped with him for the foreseeable future, if he thought that I was with Adrian then maybe he might finally transfer to a different charge and leave me alone._

I took a deep breath and said, "I'm in."

RPOV

I woke up not really sure if what just happened was real or not. Was I really going to pretend to be going out with Adrian? How would Lissa take the news? And Dimitri...I didn't want to hurt him, but he needed to realize that we were never going to happen. So maybe this really was the best thing for him.

I got up and jumped in the shower before getting dressed for training. I was still going to torture Dimitri with my inappropriate outfits but now I guess I didn't need to try as hard anymore. I just went with a pair of skinny jeans and a t- shirt. But instead of it being insanely tight across my chest emphasizing my breasts, this one hugged my perfect hourglass figure. I wonder if I could make him actually drool his time.

I threw on a jacket and tied my hair back and went next door. I knocked and waited for Dimitri to answer. When he did, he stopped in his tracks and checked out my legs,that looked particular long in these jeans. I hid my smile and started walking, after a few seconds he snapped out of his daze and followed me.

"So what are we doing today?" I asked after we walked for a few minutes in welcomed silence.

"A little revision before breakfast, then we will do some more sparring, but this time I'm going to act like a Strigoi and you're going to try and stake me," he said keeping his eyes forward.

"So like my final exam," I said, not wanting to get into much of a conversation.

He just nodded and said, "Yes."

Two hours later and the tyrant finally ended our session. Honestly I think he was just enjoying watching me move in these jeans. I was halfway through taking off my jacket and getting a drink when he finally broke the silence.

"You did well. I think that what we practice so far has sunk in. After you eat and rest we will contin..." and he once again stopped halfway through his sentience. Mmm I seemed to have that affect on him. His eyes darkened and I saw them roaming their way up and down my body.

"Yeah, see you after breakfast," I said and flipped my hair before walking away slowly. But I made sure to sway my hips just enough to make sure that he went a little crazy before I was out of his sight.

DPOV

It took everything I had in me to let her just walk away and not run after her, spin her around and kiss her until she was so breathless that she didn't have a chance to interrupt me when I told her how sorry I was and how much I loved her. I knew that I would be seeing her again in just a few hours, but when she is walking around in those little outfits and when she starts teasing me with her beautiful hair and saying her hips, she was damn near irresistible.

I let out the breath that I didn't want her to know I had been holding. She thinks she's the one in pain having to spend so much time with me, but really I was the one who was suffering. Having to spend so much time around her and not be able to steal a kiss. Having to see her like _that_ and not be able to show her how much I liked her outfit. Having to spend most of my day with her and not be able to have even a conversation with her without her biting my head off!

The woman that I was in love with hated me. It was a hard thing to accept. And that's why I was going to get her back. I gritted my teeth at the memory of what happened last night. How dare that Moroi _Adrian_ lay his hand on her perfect skin like that! And what he said!

_"Oh I'll stay away from her. But she might not stay away from me."  
_  
My fists clenched. Did he really think that Rose would fall for someone like him? I knew his type right away. Rich, Royal, a real play boy that wanted to have some fun on his holidays. No, Rose was smarter than that, I thought as I walked back to my room to have a shower before breakfast. Rose was getting so fast that I really worked up a sweat keeping up with her.

I walked over to the dining room where breakfast would be served, still thinking about what had happened. Rose probably just kissed him to get at me and it had hurt. I knew that seeing her with anyone, especially a royal jerk, would hurt, but the fact that Rose did it just to hurt me made it sting all the more. But I wasn't giving up. Rose could be incredibly stubborn and never admitted that she was wrong. But one thing you could never call me was a quitter.

I just hoped that Rose didn't get herself in over her head. I know she could defend herself if it came to it, but I still didn't like how close she was getting to Adrian. But I knew that the first time that Adrian tries anything with her, I will probably be called in to pull her off him and restrain her so she doesn't break anymore of his bones.

Or so I thought. Until I walked into the dining room.

RPOV

I was too hungry to stop by my room to shower and just went straight to breakfast. I piled up my plate and found the table that all my friends were sitting at.

"Haw Rose, damn you look hot today," said Mason, but he didn't have that longing look in his eyes that he normally did when he was looking at me. But then I looked over at the person sitting next to him and saw why. Mia was wearing a nicely fitting deep green top, Mason's favorite color, and was shooting daggers at me with her eyes. Yep. She had it bad for him.

"Thanks Mase, but I'm not the only one, I love that top Mia," I said as I started to eat. She knew what I was doing and instantly the daggers stopped.

"Thanks Rose, do you think that this color looks good on me? I'm thinking of wearing it more but I wasn't sure."

"It looks wonderful on you!" Mason said before thinking and then blushed deeply and looked away. I caught Mia's eye and have her a wink. She blushed the same color and looked the opposite way.

But she wasn't the only one that was new at out table this morning.

"Jill, it's so nice that you could join us," I said and glanced over at Eddie's smiling face. Was I a matchmaker or what?

"Yes, Adrian said that we should sit together today and get to know each other more," she said not looking at Eddie. Aw poor guy, he would probably take her shyness as un- interest. Or he would of if I hadn't shown up anyway.

"That's a great idea, but sadly I'm going to be busy with training and Mason and Mia are going to be busy for an entirely different reason," I said looking over at them- to find them gazing lovingly into each others eye. Ugh, puppy love. I looked back at Jill.

"So I'm afraid that we won't be around that much. So you're going to have to settle for Eddie as compony. Is that going to be ok?" I asked with fake innocent. And they both blushed. Honestly, this was just to easy.

"Uuuh, yeah...th...that would be fine. If he wants to of course," Jill said sneaking a glance at Eddie.

"YES!...I...I mean sure, I wouldn't mind," he said trying to sound cool. Well that solved the love lives of all of my friends.

"Morning Rose," chirped Lissa as she and Christian walked over and sat down. "What's new?" she asked looking around the table at all of our blushing friends.

"I'm an amazing matchmaker that's what," I said and laughed as everyone jumped a little and moved away from the one that they were looking at.

"Ooh ooh ooh! Now we can double date!" she squealed excitedly and I laughed.

"Well hello there ladies," I heard a familiar voice say. I turned around and saw Adrian walking over to us and sitting down next to me. Ummm, awkward. What was I supposed to do? Kiss him on the cheek again? Nobody knew that we were "together" yet, did we just tell them? As far as they knew we had only just met yesterday.

"Hey Rose, I was wondering if later after training you wanted to catch up and you know, spend some time together?" he asked with his "devil may care" smile as he draped his arm around my shoulders. I guess he was going with the slow approach. Good. This was all for show, I didn't want him getting too physical.

I shrugged my shoulders casually. "Sure, why not," I said and let him keep his arm around me. I got some surprised looks from my friends but none of them said anything. Except for Lissa.

_Is he asking you out?_ she asked excitedly through the bond.

I slightly nodded my head and wanted to block my ears (even though I knew it would do no good) as I heard her scream through the bond. I would have to get her alone later and explain to her what was going on.

We were about halfway through breakfast when I felt someone's eyes on the back of my neck. I looked over my shoulder and saw who it was.

Dimitri. He was looking at where Adrian had his arm around my shoulders, and just like last night when he saw Adrian's arms around my waist, he looked like he wanted to walk over and remove his arms from their socket.

I could also see through the anger, to the hurt underneath. He knew that I kissed Adrian last night to make him mad. But there was no way that I could have planned for him to walk in at this moment and see Adrian with his arms around me. Which meant that this was more serious than Dimitri thought it was.

I quickly looked back at my food and pretended to lessen to the conversation. I hated hurting him. I may not want to get back together with him and have my heart broken all over again. But that didn't mean that I didn't still love him and not want to cause him any pain.

But I would have to accepted it if I wanted this little charade to work. And I bet that Dimitri thought that this was going to be hard for him.

DPOV

I left. After I walked into the dining room and saw Adrian with his arm around Rose, I turned around and left before I did something stupid. But not before I caught Rose's eye. She didn't look smug like she did last night about what she was doing. She actually looked kind of pained. Did she not want Adrian's arm around her? I swear if he was forcing her in anyway I was gonna-

I had to stop that line of thought right away. Rose would just punch him somewhere where it hurt if he tried anything, like she did with Jesse Zeklos. But then why didn't she look happy that I had caught her? If she didn't want him near her she would just tell him to get lost.

I shook my head and went in search of something to punch until it was time for our next training session.

I waited out in the field for Rose to show up, and of course she was late. I got mad thinking about the reason why. Was she with Adrian again? I wasn't sure if I could stop myself from hurting him if I saw them touching each other again.

She finally showed up ten minutes late. Without me having to tell her she started doing warm up laps. I watched her run. She still had on the same outfit as before and I just couldn't keep my eyes off of her. She saw so graceful when she ran, like a beautiful bird about to take flight. After she was finished with her run, we did some quick stretches and started sparring.

She didn't strike first like she used to, now she waited for the right time and opening. Me, being a "young Strigoi " I lunged at her fast and unskillfully. I went for her neck but she dodged and spun so she was at my back. Some couldn't stake me from there, but I couldn't bite her either, it was a purely defensive move. I spun around and went for her legs, but she jumped and made an attempt for my heart. But I was too quick for her and grabbed her wrist and made her drop the fake stake she was holding. I then swept her legs out from under her and pinned her to the ground.

It was then that I realized how much of an intimate position that we were in. She was on her back and I was hovering over her, my thighs on either side of her hips. And was pinning both of her hands up over her head. We were both breathing hard and our adrenaline pumping from our fight.

Normally, I would be the one to back of when things got this personal. But after having her so emotionally distant for so long, I craved any kind of intimacy that I could get from her. I looked deep into her eyes and for once I didn't see anger or hate. I saw longing and regret.

Was she thinking of how much she wished that things had gone differently with us? I hoped so. My eyes looked a little lower and landed on her lovely soft lips. And before I could stop myself, I bent down and gave her a deep and passionate kiss. I had missed her so much and I was so starved that it took me a second to realizes that she was kissing me back!

I didn't dare stop to asked why, instead I lowered myself onto her slowly, still balancing my weight so I didn't crush her, but enough for her to feel me. I let go of her hands from above her head and instead wrapped one around her waist and pulled her closer to me and brought my other one up to play with her hair and give her a deeper kiss.

She then reached up and tangled her fingers in my hair.

My heart was beating so fast that I was sure that she could feel it. I couldn't believe it. After months of trying to get close enough to her to tell her how sorry I was, she was finally lowering the walls around her and letting me in.

I released her lips to let her breathe as I kissed my way down her neck, alternating between hungry kisses and playfully nibbles. It was by far the most amazing kiss that I had ever shared with her and I never wanted it to end.

But Rose had other ideas. She rocked her hips so that we rolled over and she was on top. But instead of bending down and kissing me like I thought she would, she got up off of me and took a few shaky steps away.

I sat up and looked at her with confusion. "Why did you stop?" She returned the kiss, that means that she wanted it right?

"W...we can't do this. I can't do this. Not again," she said half to herself.

"Why not?" I whispered. It was bad enough when she refused to let me get close to her, but now, after giving me such an earth shattering kiss and getting my hopes up, she was just going to shake her head and say that it couldn't happen!

"Because I don't want to get my heart broken again that's why!" she shouted, angry now. "You can't just kiss me like that and play with my heart!" she shouted wiping a few tears away. She thought that I was just playing? Had her opinion of me dropped so low?

"I wasn't playing with you Roza, I -"

"Don't call me that!" she snapped. I hated it when she refused to let me call her Roza. It was such and affectionate term for me and I wanted her to know how much I cared for her.

"Look, it won't work between us. We both know it, so why are you pushing this?" she said sounding both angry and hurt.

"Why won't it work? You seem to be open enough to the idea with Adrian!" I growled back. I couldn't help it, I loved her more then he could ever understand, but still he was the one that got a kiss, he was the one that got to wrap his arm around her and be with her in public.

"Why won't you give me a chance? What's the difference between him and me?" I asked, my hurt making me get madder.

"The difference is that Adrian has been up front and honest with me from the beginning! He hasn't led me on and let me think that we could be together and then pulled the rug out from under my feet," Rose shouted back. It was a good thing that we were in a deserted field where no one could overhear this.

"Do you really think that Adrian cares about you? You're nothing but a bit of holiday fun to him. He doesn't love you," I said than lowered my voice and made it gentler. "Not like I do," I said stepping closer to her. Regardless of what she says, she kissed me back and it had been filled with passion, and though she wouldn't admit it, love.

She shook her head. "I know what Adrian wants, he told me straight up," she whispered.

"So you're really going to go our with him?" I asked not even bothering to hide my hurt.

"I don't have a reason not to," Rose said not looking at me. I was about to tell her EXACTLY why she shouldn't got out with him when she starting talking again.

"I have to go. See you tomorrow." And she turned and ran away.

I watch her go and felt my heart breaking all over again. I know she still had feelings for me. Otherwise she wouldn't get so mad that she ran away from me whenever we talked about it. And believe it or not, that gave me hope. Love and hate were closer than people gave them credit for. If she still had feelings for me, good or bad, then there was still a good chance that I could win her back.

I opened up my phone and got ready to play one of the last cards in my desk. It had a high chance of blowing up I my face, but at this point I would try anything. If this worked then I would be with my Roza again. And if it didn't then I would just have to spend the rest of my life alone and broken hearted.

The person on the other end of the line answered. It was now or never.

**What did you guys and dolls think? I thought I would add in a nice juicy kiss for you romance lovers.  
**

**Soooo. Will Rose ever forgive Dimitri?**

** Did she want that kiss as much as he did?**

**and finally,who did Dimitri call?! **

**Find out next chapter if you review this one:) **


	7. Chapter 7

**And I'm back! Sorry for the delay but I'm in the middle of moving house right now:( but I will try to update at lest once a week if my Beta is agreeable:) **

**Disclaimers are fun and no matter how many times that you have to do them they never get old or annoying:) so in case you didn't get the sarcasm I don't own vampire academy**

_I opened up my phone and got ready to play one of the last cards in my desk. It had a high rchance of blowing up I my face but at this point I would try anything. If this worked then I would be with my Roza again. And if it didn't then I would just have to spend the rest of my life alone and broken hearted._

The person on the other end of the line answered. It was now or never.  


DPOV

"Здравствуйте?" (Hello)

_**Conversation in Russian**_

"Hello Vika, how are you?" I asked with a smile. I really needed to keep in touch with my family more.

"Dimka! It's so good to hear from you again. How are you?" Vika asked in an excited voice. We had always been close.

"Well actually Vika-" I can't believe I'm doing this. "I need some advice."

"On?"

I took a deep breath. "On how to fix something stupid I did to a girl," I finally got out. Growing up in a Dhampir community, there wasn't much that Vika didn't know or hear about when it came to men being jerks. But she would also know about how some of those jerks had turned good and what they could do to get the girl back. Also she was a teenager and a very social one at that. I was never like that when I was in school.

"What did you do?" Vika asked with a mix of interest and exasperation.

"Well..." How did I tell her what happened without letting her know that it involved one of my students? "There was this...teacher that I worked with at St Vlad's. We worked together for a few months and I guess that we both liked each other without the other one knowing. Then there was this party and..." And what? I couldn't tell her about the lust charm. "And some student spiked the pinch and we both got drunk," I said quickly. I didn't make it a habit to drinking, but saying it was spiked would get me off the hook.

"Please tell me that you didn't sleep with her and that now she's mad because you took advantage of her," Vika said not sounding happy about me disrespecting a woman like that.

"No, no it's nothing like that." Well she wasn't too far off the money. "We just kissed for a bit before it stopped." Barely in time. "And she thought that meant that I wanted to be together with her."

"And you don't?" she asked still trying to piece together what happened so she could help me.

"No, actually the opposite. I told her that I loved her but because we worked together, it would distract us from our work too much so we should just forget that it ever happened. And now she's angry whenever we have to work together and being very difficult. I also think that she's dating another staff member to get back at me." That was close enough to the truth to get some useful advice out of her.

"Dimka! You idiot!" she shouted at me. I quickly took the phone away from my ear, while she ranted about how stupid I was.

"What did I do wrong? I mean I know it wasn't the best way to handle the situation, but I wasn't rude or disrespectful to her."

"That's the point! You were so cold, like you were telling her that you loving her was no big deal because you were still going to choose your job over love. Of course she's mad and being hard to deal with! Honestly didn't mama teach you better?!" Vika shouted at me. Why were woman doing that to me so much now?

"Well that's not the only problem now, because I've realized what an idiot I was and now I'm trying to win her back. But she won't talk to me outside of work and she's been torturing me with really tight clothes and acting very seductive. She thinks that I'm playing with her," I added sadly.

"Well of course she does! After the way you acted how could she not? You can't just treat her heart like a yo-yo. Telling her that you love her and dumping her, then wanting her back."

I gritted my truth. "Yes I know I screwed up. But what I want to know is what can I do to fix it?" I really was at the end of my rope asking my 16 year old sister about this, but right now I was desperate and would do anything to get Rose away from Adrian and back into my arms.

"Well the first thing that you need to do is get her to trust you again. She will never open her heart to you if she thinks that you're just going to break it like last time."

"And how should I do that?" I asked just about ready to take notes like a good student if it would help me with Rose.

"You could try telling her something that you wouldn't tell anybody else. Personal or business. Or trust her with a task that she normally wouldn't be allowed to do if you outrank her. But most of all, you have to show her that you're serious this time and aren't just going to throw her heart away like last time. And that's where romance comes in," Vika said, sounding like she gave this talk all the time. I guess she was the love guru to more people than I thought.

"Romance? Like what?" How was I supposed to be romantic with her when no one could know that we were, and hopefully soon are, together?

"Well you have the clichés. Teddy bears with love hearts. But if she's not a girly girl then she might not go for that, but candle lit dinners and flowers might work. Jewelry would be nice too, but you don't want her to think that you're just buying her. And chocolate is always a crowd pleaser.

Of course! Food and chocolate! How could I have not seen that before? If there was one way to Rose's heart, it was that.

"Thanks Vika, you're a genius!" I told her, a plan already formulating in my head.

"Tell me something I don't know," she said happily. "And be sure to keep me updated," she added before I was about to hung up.

"I will and give my love to mama," I said before I ended the call.

Ok, teddy bears with love hearts. Mmmm don't think Rose would like that. She might decide to stick a picture of my face on it and to use it for target practice. A candle lit dinner might do the trick. Mama taught me how to cook and Rose loves food. As for flowers... definitely not roses. She would hit me with them. Jewelry...well first how was I going to get it when I was here? Not to mention what could I get her? Maybe I should just go with the guaranteed win. Chocolate. And maybe donuts.

But that was quite a list. How was I going to get all that? Maybe I should just start with how I was going to get her to trust me again. That was the real question.

RPOV

If running back to my room crying was going to become a habit then I was in serious danger of loosing my bad ass reputation. But I really couldn't help it this time.

I made it back to my room and had the door locked in just the nick of time. I burst into tears so fast that I didn't even make it to my bed. Oh why did he have to kiss me? And boy what a kiss it was! It felt more than just amazing. It was the most wonderful kiss that we had ever stolen. The way that he ran his hands possessively over my body, how he fisted his hands in my hair to hold me there while he took control of the kiss. The way his tongue both played gently with mine yet also thrusted hard into my mouth and overloaded my senses.

I was so consumed by the kiss that I didn't even realize why I needed to stop. But as he started kissing his way down my neck, I thought back to the lust charm and wondered how far we could get. Before I remembered that he had dumped me shortly after.

I punched my pillow in anger. Why did he have to go and do that! I was just starting to be able to be in the same room as him and not feel like my heart was being squeezed by a vase. And now the next time I see him, I'm going to have to fight the urge to think about how good it felt to have his lips on mine again.

I thought that having Adrian around was supposed to deter Dimitri away from wanting me, but it seems to of had the opposite affect. Gahhhh, why was Dimitri so easy to love? Any other guy that treated me like Dimitri just did would be walking around being less than a man should be. But Dimitri? Nope, there was no defense against the way my heart melted around him.

I must have cried myself to sleep, because the next thing I knew, I was sitting on a hot sunny beach with Adrian by my side.

"What are you doing asleep?" I asked him, too irritated with the world to be nice.

"I could ask you the same thing," he countered not seeming bothered by my bad tone and mood.

"Training tired me out," I said with a shrug of my shoulders.

"Dimitri not going down without a fight huh?" he said not sounding surprised.

"How did you -"

"I can see the pain in your aura. What did he do?"

"He kissed me." I didn't bother lying to him. He could probably tell if I did anyway.

"And you didn't like it?" he asked with a teasing smile. Great. I bet he could also see _exactly_ how much I liked it.

"You already know the answer, so why bother asking?" I gritted out, not happy that he could read me so well. I was so used to hiding the way I felt.

"Because it helps me read you when you are thinking about the thing that is making you feel that way," Adrian said, not sounding so smooth but actually really concerned now.

"He really hurt you huh?" he asked. I didn't really want to talk about it. But I had nothing better to do and I didn't think that Adrian was going to drop this.

"Well, we were training together for a while and I guess we both kind of fell for each other but we never acted on it until this worm of a Moroi put a lust charm on us so we didn't interfere with his evil plans. We didn't get far past kissing, but I really thought that we had something."

"I've read both of your auras. I can tell that you definitely did," Adrian said. It only made my heart hurt more to hear if confirmed that he did love me but still chose his job over me.

"Yeah, well obviously I felt more for him, because it wasn't long after that he ditched me for his job. But now he suddenly wants me back and is prepared to pull all sorts of dirty tricks to do it. And that's pretty much all there is to it," I said, not wanting to talk about this anymore.

"We both know that there's more to it than that. Matters of the heart are never black and white, there's always shades of gray. But you don't owe me an explanation,"Adrian said, probably reading my aura and realizing what a foul mood I was in.

"You never answered my question," I said changing the topic. "What are you doing asleep at this hour?"

"I was trying to catch some time with my lily girl," he said and his face lit up again, just like last time. "She's always switching between time zones and going back and forth on vampire and human time schedules. She's also a workaholic and doesn't sleep as much as she should. So I never know when I can catch her."

Poor guy. But least he has a way of spending time with her. Not to mention that it was completely untraceable. And considering that their relationship was probably just as taboo as Dimitri and mine was, if Adrian didn't have that power, they probably wouldn't ever be able to see each other.

"Did you find her?" I asked. I really wanted them to make this work. It was probably the same reason that I was playing matchmaker to all of my friends. If I couldn't be happy, I was going to make sure that the people around me were.

His smile was in serious danger of beating the sun in brightness. "Yes and I swear that she looks more lovely every time I see her." What a sap.

"And she's still cool with you "dating me"? I asked, she must have a lot of faith in Adrian to go alone with this. And with his playboy past that was really saying something.

"Yes, she's fine with it. She knows that we need to keep the spot light off of us, and me acting like I used to is the perfect cover."

"Hiding in plain sight," I muttered, something that sunk in my head from one of Dimitri's tactic lessons. Annoying as he may be, that guy knows his stuff.

"Exactly. So I was thinking of us making a big show of eating dinner together at a separate table from everybody else tonight. Get word out that were "together", what do you think?" Adrian asked me as he played in the sand.

"Sure, why not. We will just be doing exactly what we are now. Add in a little hand holding and we're the new hot couple," I muttered hating how complicated my life had become.

"I know that this isn't fun for you, but I really appreciate it. And if there's ever anything that I can do to make this up to you then just say the word," Adrian said with his heart in his eyes. How did I let myself get talked into this?

It was almost dinner time when I woke up from my nap. I jumped into the shower and went down to dinner. I made sure not to wear the slutty clothes that I had packed for Dimitri. If this was going to be Adrian and I's first date, I didn't want to get labeled as easy.

I looked around for Adrian, wondering if I should just walk over and sit with him or I should wait for him to ask me in front of witnesses so word spreads. But before I could decide on either, I heard my name be called from behind me. I turned around and was surprised to see my mother.

"Hello Rosemarie," she said with a straight face. Not even an attempt at a smile for her only daughter.

"Mum!" I said surprised. I knew that she was on this trip but so far we had done a pretty good job at avoiding each other. I had hoped that we could continue with that.

"Are you having a nice time?" she asked after three straight minutes of silence.

"Yeah, so far," I said and didn't know what to follow it up with.

"I heard about the trip from Guardian Belikov. And I thought that it would be good for us to spend some time together," she said still not smiling but not sounding as hard and guardian like as before.

"Yeah, I heard about that." Yet another thing that I had to get back at Dimitri for. "But I'm pretty booked with training," I said not wanting to hurt her feelings, but not wanting to spend to much time with her either. It never ended well.

"Yes I heard about that and that you're making good progress," she said without any trace of sarcasm in her voice. Well that was unexpected.

"Would you like to eat with me?" Mum asked and I swear that she sounded genuine. I almost wanted to take her up on that offer. Until Adrian showed up.

"Hey, are you ready?" he asked, not knowing who it was that I was talking to.

"Who's this?" Mum asked not sounding rude, but not sounding impressed either.

"Mum this is Adrian. Adrian this is my mother Janine," I said hoping that this didn't end as badly as I thought it would.

"Miss Hathaway," Adrian said sounding respectful for once.

"Adrian, it's nice to meet you. Are you a friend of Rose?" Mum asked sounding like she was interrogating a suspect.

"Yes, he is. We were just about to get something to eat." I hesitated. Would it be so bad if she joined us? All we wanted was for people to talk. Adrian meeting my mother and eating with us would certainly fit the bill.

"Would you like to join us?" I asked trying my best not to make it sound like it was forced.

"No, that's ok. You spend time with your friend. We will catch up another time," she said in her formal guardian tone and quickly walked away.

"Something I said?" Adrian asked.

"All you said was her name, how could it have been something that you said?" I snapped in an angry voice. My mother finally makes an effort to spend time with me and she takes the first out she can find? Sure she gets points for trying, but that still hurt.

"Whatever, let's go and cause a scandal," I said as we went and got food and sat down at an unoccupied table in plain sight.

We were halfway through dinner and so far so good. The entire dinning room was chatting about us like we weren't even there and I think I heard a phone taking photos. Well it was on Facebook now. No way to stop it.

"I would call this first date a success wouldn't you?" Adrian asked as we finished and got up to leave. But as we did Adrian reached over and grabbed my hand.

"Is this ok?" he muttered as we walked slowly out the doors.

"Yeah, this is fine," I said as we walked back to my room. Once we got to my door, I glanced behind my shoulder and saw that about five girls were "badly" hiding behind the room doors down the hall from us.

"Should we give them a show?" Adrian asked with his "devil may care" smile.

"Just a small one, I don't want people to talk too much just yet," I said with a little smile of my own. It may be fake, but this relationship with Adrian was seriously good at keeping my mind off of Dimitri.

Adrian leaned in and gave me a simple kiss on the cheek. Enough to get people talking, but not enough to get me branded as easy or a one night stand.

"Goodnight Adrian," I said as I walked into my room.

"Goodnight Rose," he said and left. I closed my door, and was immediately attacked!

"Oh my gosh, tell me everything!" Lissa demanded and she dragged me over to the beds.

"Whoa whaa Liss calm down, it's not what it looks like," I said in between laughs.

"Oh so you didn't just have a first date with Adrian?" Lissa asked raising an eyebrow. It was a good thing that I loved her so much or I would have to slap her.

"No I didn't," I said and told her the whole story. About how we were faking and that Adrian loved Sydney.

"So none of this is real?" Lissa asked looking sad.

"No, it's not." Again she looked sad. "Why the face?" I asked putting my own feelings aside for her.

"Because I thought that you were finally moving on and that you would be happy. But now I find out that you're still just as miserable and heart broken as before, you're just hiding it behind a fake relationship," Lissa said looking sadder than ever.

I pulled her into a hug. "You don't need to be sad for me. I have you, that's all I need," I said putting on a brave face.

"No it's not!" Lissa said and pulled out of the hug. "I want you to be happy and the only person that can do that hurt you so bad that you won't go back to him. So what am I supposed to do? Just sit here and watch you be miserable while all the rest of our friends are happy with each other?" she asked me getting worked up.

"What do you want me to do Liss?" I asked dropping the act. "I love him. But after what he did I can't trust him again."

"What would he have to do for you to trust him again?" she asked like the good friend that she was.

"I don't know. Let me chaperone a trip to the mall the next time you go or something. But that's just Guardian stuff. I doubt that he'll trust me with that. It's with my heart." I was rambling a bit, but if felt good to talk to my best friend about this.

"I know he hurt you," Lissa began in a gentle voice. "But if you know that you can't be happy with anyone else, then maybe you should give him a second chance?" she said hugging me again.

"I know you're right, but he was my first love, so that just makes this hurt all the more. It will take a lot of time for this the heal," I said suddenly exhausted.

"I'm going to hit the hay. Night Liss."

"Good night Rose."

DPOV

Tonight was one of the hardest shifts that I had to do. I was posted in the dinning room and I had had a front row seat to Rose and Adrian's first date. I don't know how she didn't notice me but I sure couldn't keep my eyes off of her.

I couldn't put my finger on it, but something about their date seemed off. It's not like I had a whole lot of experiences with dates,but Rose didn't seem all that interested. To everybody else I'm sure it looked like the makings of a new hot romance, but I could read Rose better than most. I held onto the hope that maybe she wasn't really all that interested in him. Or maybe I had just hurt her so bad that she wasn't capable of wanting to be with someone so soon.

I was so absorbed that I didn't notice Janine waking up to me.

"Hello Guardian Belikov," she said in her official Guardian voice.

"Guardian Hathaway," I greeted back.

"I was wondering how Rose's training was going," she continued, trying to have a conversation but sounding distracted. Probably by the fact that her daughter was on a dinner date right in front of her.

"Rose is progressing very well, she has a lot of talent," I said not wanting to make her sound bad in front of her mother.

"What have you been teaching her?" she asked sounding more interested.

"Balance on unstable terrain, endurance through snow running and staking. And to really get the most out of this training exercise, we will spend the last two weeks in an isolated cabin high in the mountains."

I could have kicked myself for saying it like that! An older male wanting to take a young girl to an isolated cabin for two weeks! Could I get any closer to a horror movie plot?

Janine shot me a look that was both shock and a death glare. "You want to spend two weeks alone with my daughter in a cabin in the mountains?" she asked accusingly.

"It will help her focus her mind," I quickly added before Janine thought the same thing that I did and kicked me somewhere that would make me unable to walk for the rest of this trip.

"She has the skill, but she's so focuses on her classmates and has recently started dating that Moroi boy from the Court," I said indicated Adrian. "I'm worried that if I don't discipline her mind, than there will be nothing that my training will be able to help with."

Silence.

"Headmistress Kirova approved it after Rose pulled a stunt that involved Jesse Zeklos, honey and ants."

"My girl always could handle herself when it came to the boys," she muttered with an almost smile.

"I can't say I like it Belikov, but your reasoning is sound. But as a mother, I do have some concerns about you being alone with Rose for two whole weeks, even if you are her mentor," she said not sounding like she was going to agree to this. If she kicked up a big enough fuss, then Kirova would scrape the idea and I would loose my chance of getting some quality alone time with Rose.

I had to think of something quick. I was never going to get close enough to Rose if she kept escaping at the end of our training. If we were alone in the cabin then there would be no escape. I could finally have a real conversation with her and hopefully make her understand that I would do anything that she wanted (no matter how crazy) to prove to her that I loved her.

"Yes, I understand how it would look," I said as properly as I could. Janine actually liked me, as much as she could anyway. "But given the amount of time that we already spend together training and that it is well known how much Rose dislikes me because of all the work I make her do, that the students would see it as me being a cruel task maker that won't let Rose have a holiday."

Again. Silence. This was torture.

"Very well. But I want to hear reports on Rose's training and her progress. And if I get wind of any bad talk about what you two are doing alone in those cabins then I'm going to Headmistress Kirova and getting her to cut the trip short understood?" she said in a hard voice meant to intimidate, but she might as well have just told me that it was ok for me to take the rest of the year off with pay.

"Thank you Guardian Hathaway, I promise you, you will see major results from Rose after this."

Namely that she won't be so angry and aggressive because she won't be nursing a broken heart.

"I'm sure I will."

**Aaaw so it wasn't Tasha like you all thought. But she might make an appearance later, I haven't decided yet.**

**So Rose and Adrian's big first date hu, what did you think?**

**And Dimitri's in _trouble_ with Janine! what do you think she would do if she found out the _real_ reason why Dimitri wanted to get Rose alone in that cabin?**

**And finally what am I going to do next chapter? Follow me and find out;)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry sorry for take so long:( but here it is:) **

**Disclamer: lions and tigers and disclaimers oh my! And I don't own VA**

_"Very well. But I want to hear reports on Rose's training and her progress. And if I get wind of any bad talk about what you two are doing alone in those cabins then I'm going to Headmistress Kirova and getting her to cut the trip short understood?" she said in a hard voice meant to intimidate, but she might as well have just told me that it was ok for me to take the rest of the year off with pay._

"Thank you Guardian Hathaway, I promise you, you will see major results from Rose after this."

Namely that she won't be so angry and aggressive because she won't be nursing a broken heart,

"I'm sure I will."

TIME SKIP DPOV

A week. That's all. That's all! They barely even knew each other when they had their first "_dinner date_" and now after ONLY A WEEK! They weren't only "_dating_", they were "_officially_" boyfriend and girlfriend! This was moving way too fast. It had taken Rose and I months to fall in love...well actually it had probably been shorter, but at least we were serious. And I could tell from the way that they were around each other. This was nothing but a bit of fun for Adrian and a way to take her mind off of me for Rose.

I don't think that they had actually done "_anything_" yet. No matter what the girls said back at St. Vlads, I knew that Rose was a virgin. And I knew that she wasn't going to give her first time away to someone that she didn't love and that didn't really love her. But if this continued then she might delude herself into thinking that as a Dhampir, she didn't deserve any better and that she wasn't ever going to fall in love and should just enjoy life while she was young.

I wasn't sure if I could handle that if she did. Every time I saw them together, every touch of the hand, every brush of their lips was like a knife to the gut. If I didn't do something quick then it might be too late, but what could I do? My sister had given me some good ideas but I wouldn't be able to get my hands on any of the things I needed until I went (if I was selected that is) to chaperone on a trip with some of the Royals that wanted to go to the mall.

And even then, I only got a 15 min break to do what I wanted to do. But I could say that I needed to get "_training supplies_" for the two weeks that Rose and I would be at the cabin. That might get me some extra time and an excuse to join in on a trip when it happens. I just hoped that I could last another week of this torture.

ROPV

"Hey Rose, how's the extra training...going?" Lissa asked before she got a good look at me. I walked in the door all sweaty and red faced (which I was blaming the sweat for) and slightly dragging one foot. I raised up my hands before she got any ideas of healing it.

"Oh the training is fine. It's the "one on one teacher interaction" that's driving me insane," I said as I threw myself on my bed, hiding my face. But of course that didn't fool Lissa for long. Being my best friend, she could read my moods without me having to tell her. And her doing aura work with Adrian wasn't helping me either.

"What happened?" she asked as she sat down next to me on the bed. "Did he try to kiss you again?" she asked, interested in the soap opera that was my life.

Letting out a breath I told her, since it was pointless trying to hide anything from her. "He didn't _DO_ anything _EXACTLY_," I said hating that I had to re live the memory.

"What do you mean?"

I sat up. Well...he's normally cold to me during our sessions and then tries to get close to me after or during our breaks. But this time he...well he was just really warm to me. He just opened up about things that are happening in his life or stories from when he was in school."

"And you didn't like that?" Lissa asked not sounding like she believed it.

"No, I loved it. And he knew I would. But because he wasn't making moves on me, I sort of just let him babble on until I could leave. But then I found myself really getting into what he was saying and how nice it was to hear about what he was like when he was younger," I said not distressed, but not cool and collected either.

"So this was just another one of his schemes to get you back?" Lissa asked, not sounding as displeased as I would have liked.

I blew my hair out of my face. "Yeah, and I fell for it. I was so wrapped up in what he was saying that I didn't even notice when our training session had ended." I had been too focused on his rich smooth voice for much else to register.

"So does this mean that you might be starting to forgive him?" Lissa asked, trying to fix my messed up love life.

I shook my head. "Maybe one day, but the pain is still just too fresh to think about right now." My love for him and open wound that he kept pouring salt into whenever he did or said something that made me want to go over and kiss him.

Lissa gave me a slow smile. "Well I have somthing that just might make you feel better," she said and got up off the bed to get her lap top.

"Yeah?" I asked happy with this change of topic.

"Well, you know how you are always saying that Dimitri drives like the bad guy out a cop movie?" she asked as she opened YOUTUBE.

It was true. After Victor had kidnapped Lissa, Dimitri and I had gone after her and let me tell you, a cereal box would have been to hard a place for Dimitri to find a license. The guy was a mad man behind the wheel.

"Well, I found a website that you will appreciate called "we love Russia"." She clicked on it and I immediately saw why she wanted to show me this site. **(IT'S A REAL SITE, LOOK AT IT!)  
**  
"What!" I laughed out as I saw the first clip. The entire site was dedicated to stupid things that Russians did, mostly involving cars. The first one was a bunch of guys that were doing burnouts over a frozen lake.

In a TANK!

"How did they even get access to a tank!" I cried out through my laughter.

"I think they're in the army," Lissa said back through her laughter.

"I don't believe it," I said as I watched some guy weave in and out of traffic on a freeway with a scooter. The wrong way!

"They wouldn't let anybody that stupid near a gun," I said and I watched an old lady cross the street, miss two cars passing her by inches, and stop right in front of a car that would have hit her if it didn't swerve at the last minute. Without breaking her pace, turning her head, OR dropping her groceries.

"This is the best thing that you could have done for me Liss thanks," I cried out as I hugged her.

"Oh it gets better," she said and I looked back at the laptop. The next clip was a bunch of teenage boys in swimming trunks, standing around a hole in an ice lake. It was clear that they were daring one of the boys to swim in the lake and come out a few meters out another hole. What was more interesting was that one of the boys that was being dared was Dimitri!** (Credit for this idea gots to ALS2: Camping Trip by Dimitri-s-Smexi-Shewolf. You guys and dolls should read it ;)  
**  
"This can't be real," I whispered as I watched him jump in and start swimming under ice that must have been at least 3 inches thick.

"Oh it is. Now what do you say that we put this on Facebook and make sure that the entire Academy sees it?" Lissa said with an evil smile on her angel face.

"You read my mind."

DPOV

I was walking down the hall to breakfast after a confusing morning training session with Rose. Yesterday I had tried Vika's tactic and opened up to Rose about some private, personal stuff. But unlike when I told her about Paul, I had kept this light and constant atmosphere all throughout our training session. And I think that it was really working. Rose hadn't even noticed when the session had ended and for once hadn't run away from me.

I had done the same this morning, but I got the feeling that it didn't have the same affect. Rose hadn't looked at me with slight warmth like she had yesterday. Instead she looked at me like she was trying not to laugh. And I had been getting similar looks from some students as well. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I bet my next paycheck that Rose was somehow at the heart of it.

I was led into the dinning hall, when I was met with wide unashamed looking students and their hushed whispers. Pretending not to notice, I went and got my breakfast before sitting down at a table with some other off duty guardians, most of them just gave me polite nods. But Jack smirked at me, like "I know something that you don't know" kind of smile.

I decided that I should find out sooner rather then later or I would have to fight the students blind.

"Look, if you know what all the students are going on about then I would really appreciate you just telling me." I said without bothering to make small talk. Everyone knew that I wasn't a fan of it.

"Well, well, the fame has gone to Mister Facebook's head already," Jack said with a huge grin.

"What?" I asked truly stunned. Instead of clarifying, Jack just fiddled around with his phone before he handed it over to me. I looked down at the screen. And felt my blood freeze. I had been 15 at the time, but I remembered it. That stupid dare, it had been fun at the time. I was almost 16 and bullet proof. But after the death of Ivan, I had lost that attitude.

"This explains a lot," I muttered as I handed the phone back.

"Yep, you will be the center of attention from this for weeks," Jack said happily.

"Wonderful," I said and tried to sink into my cair. Not the easiest thing to do at 6'7.

After having an entire day of "bad ass Belikov" and "balls of steel" I was more than eager to escape into my room for the night. Rose had worn a victory smile on her face the entire training session and I couldn't blame her. She had out flanked me, plain and simple. But that didn't mean that I had given up. I used her over excitement at having the small victory to grab hold of her hand for longer the necessary when she overextended her move in our sparring. She had blushed a bit at once again feeling the little electric current that flowed between us when ever we touched. So all in all, not a bad session. But I was happy to finally shower and get to bed.

Until I heard a knock on my door.

I walked over and looked through the peephole and was surprised to see who it was. I opened the door and greeted her.

"Princess? What are you doing here?" I asked, it was after curfew. If she was caught breaking it then she would get in trouble, and if she was caught breaking curfew in MY ROOM, then I would be a hell of a lot more then just in trouble.

"It's Lissa, and I need to talk to you about Rose," was all she said. I opened up my door enough for her to slide in. I knew that this was a bad idea, but I was also starved for any information I could get about my Roza, be it good or bad. But if Lissa had come here with the intent of talking me out of trying to win Rose's heart back, then she was wasting her breath. I didn't care if they were getting... close, Adrian wasn't good enough for my Roza.

"What would you like to tell me about Rose, LISSA?" I said emphasizing the name that she insisted people call her.

"It's about her dating Adrian." I clenched my jaw at that, like I did whenever anybody mentioned them dating.

"What about it?" I asked trying to keep my cool. I knew that Rose told Lissa everything, but I really didn't need to hear about how happy, or worse, how "physical" Rose and Adrian were getting.

She hesitated, like she was trying to find the right words. "Look, we both know that this thing between her and Adrian isn't going to last, and I don't want to see my best friend getting hurt. And we also know that she's too stubborn and bull headed to admit to anyone else that she's hurting after what happened between you two." After a deep breath, she looked me right in my eyes.

"That's why I'm here," she said and I knew that she meant business.

"To do what?" I asked on guard. I hope she wasn't about to try and push me into something Illegal. I knew that wasn't her style, but after hanging out around Rose and Adrian, you never know.

"First of all I'm still mad at you for breaking her heart," she said giving me a death glare that had me worried. "But I know that despite the stupid decision that you made to break up with her, you did so thinking that you were protecting her."

"Yeah," I said as the hurt built up. Just like it did every time I thought about the pain in her eyes as she cried and told me that she loved me. "I never wanted to do that to her, I just wanted what was best for her. I didn't care about my reputation, but if she got caught with me then the school wouldn't have allowed her to be your guardian and I knew that that would of broken her heart. So I pulled away before we did anything that she would of regretted," I told her asking her with my eyes to understand how much pain it had caused me to do that to Rose. And that I wouldn't of done it if I didn't think that it was the best thing for her.

Her look shifted to a gentle one as she seemed to be looking just above my head, like some sign was hanging there that I couldn't see. "Yes, I know. I can see how sorry you are and how much you love her. Which is why I'm here to give you my help."

"With what?" She couldn't be thinking of what I think she was thinking ...could she?

She took a deep breath and said, "I'm going to help you win Rose back."

**Dun dun dunnnnnn! **

**So Lissa is on team Dimitri,how do you think that's going to turn out?**

**What are Dimitri "_training supplies" _going to be?**

**And I am serious! You guy's should read ****Dimitri-s-Smexi-Shewolf's ALS series,it's really funny;) **

**review amd and I will update sooner;) **


	9. Chapter 9

**Sorry for the late wait,but here it is;) and it's an extra long chapter for your wait,so please review;) **

**Disclaimer: patience is a virtue,so stop yelling at me all ready and just enjoy the damn chapter! And I don't own VA**

_Her look shifted to a gentle one as she seemed to be looking just above my head, like some sign was hanging there that I couldn't see. "Yes, I know. I can see how sorry you are and how much you love her. Which is why I'm here to give you my help."_

"With what?" She couldn't be thinking of what I think she was thinking ...could she?

She took a deep breath and said, "I'm going to help you win Rose back."

DPOV

"You're what?" I asked and felt like smacking myself in the face for it. But it was pretty much one of the last things that I expected to hear coming from her.

"I said I'm going to help you win Rose back," Lissa repeated and it sounded just as strange as the first time.

"Why? Shouldn't you hate me for hurting Rose like that?" I asked and seriously wished that I hadn't. Here was Rose's best friend, and possibly the only person in the world that had enough of an insider's POV to actually succeed in helping me win Rose back, and I was asking her why she wanted to do it! Great, just great, she's probably going to realize that I'm right and just walk out the door. But instead she said,

"I do. But I also know that Rose isn't going to be happy with anyone else and I can't stand the thought of me being happy with Christian and her having to watch as time goes by. Guardians very rarely fall in love, and with the age gap and the fact that you two are student and teacher, you have enough to worry about than a guardian romance being taboo. Now, do you want my help or not?" she asked and put her hands on her hips in a very Rose like kind of way.

"YES, yes I definitely do!" I said before she could re-think things. I needed all the help that I could get.

"Good, so here what you're going to do."

RPOV

I was having a very nice and not at all allowed dream about getting a very intimate massage from a shirtless Dimitri when I was woken up by someone shaking me.

"Uh?...wha...?" I asked still half asleep and just about ready to smack the person who dared wake me up when I realized that it was Lissa.

"Wake up sleeping beauty," she said, WAY to happy for whatever time in the morning it was.

"Nnnmmmm...go away," I said as I tried to go back to my dream. I may not be willing to let the real Dimitri back into my heart, but a shirtless dream Dimitri was EXACTLY what the doctor ordered. I could let myself feel love without having to worry about the chance of it going wrong. There were times when it just made the situation with Dimitri hurt worse. But if it was between having them and not, I would take the pain. At least I had something good about him in my life still.

"Oh you won't be saying that once I tell you what we will be doing tomorrow," Lissa said bounding up and down slightly on the bed.

"What?" I asked in hopes that it wouldn't be that good and I could go back to sleep. I wasn't used to crying so much and it was wearing me out.

"We got a pass to the mall!" Lissa all but screamed. It was lucky that she didn't have guardians yet, because it they heard her scream like that they would come barging in here thinking that she was being attacked.

"That's great Liss," I said a little more awake now. It wasn't that I didn't like the mall, I just wasn't really in a shopping mood. But if it would make Lissa happy I would go...unless...

"Wait, who's going to be guarding you?" I asked. If she said Dimitri, I swear I was going to inflict self harm so I wouldn't be able to go. But with my luck, they would just confine me to bed rest with Dimitri watching over me.

"I'm so glad that you asked that," Lissa said with a gleam in her eye. "Who?" I asked again, suspicious now. She wouldn't be this happy if it was Dimitri...

"You are," she said with a huge grin.

"I WHAT?" I asked. I couldn't have heard right. I was a Novice. A senior Novice, but still, we weren't allowed to go on outings solo until we graduated.

"Really? That's great!" I said truly excited. A real assignment! I know I was good, but I didn't think that my progress had been noticed. It must have been Alberta, she has always had a soft spot for me.

"Is this some kind of test?" Sometimes they sent a few senior novices out on the field as part of a test to see if some of them have what it takes to be true guardians.

"Yes and no. You will have other novices with you and you will be responsible. But you will also have three real guardians along in case you run into trouble which probably won't happen because we will be going out during the day so things will be open."

My head was spinning. "So who else is going with you?" It couldn't just be her, I know she's royal and can get away with pretty much anything, but even the school would say no if it was just Lissa throwing a tantrum to get what she wanted.

"Well there's me and Christian, Jill, Adrain, and Mia."

I frowned. "That's five Moroi, you will need more than just two novices and three guardians." When it came to guarding Moroi, especially royal Moroi, Dhampirs ALWAYS outnumbered them. It wasn't safe otherwise.

"That's not all! There will be you, Mason and Eddie with three other guardians," she said with a big smile and I had a feeling that she had something to do with the selection of the novices. How else would I have gotten lucky enough to have scored my two best frends?

"Sounds like one hell of an outing," I smiled. This was just what I needed! A real chance to show what I'm made of and a chance to get out of one, if not both, of my forced training sessions with Dimitri. Unless...

"Who will be the three guardians watching us?" I asked looking straight at Lissa's face. She bit her bottom lip and looked away from me.

"Vasilisa," I said her real name as a warning not to mess with me, I was skating on thin ice lately. No pun intended.

"Well there's Stevie and Jack," she said naming two other guardians that I was on friendly terms with but then she paused.

No. NO. My luck couldn't be that bad, it just couldn't!

"And?" I pushed, knowing what was coming but hoping that I was wrong.

"And...Dimitri," she said looking guilty.

"Ughhh," I cried and fell back against the bed. I really couldn't catch a break could I? No matter how much I try to avoid him, it seems like, some kind of invisible force keeps throwing us back together.

"It really won't be that bad Rose, you will be doing proper guardian stuff and won't have to talk personal stuff with him at all. And you know what? When I asked if we could have this trip he was the one to suggest that they make it a training exercise and that you be the one to do it."

That I didn't see coming. "Really?" I asked and sat back up. Lissa was nodding her head.

"Yeah, he was all like "she has been progressing very well in her training and I think a field test is an excellent training exercise" and all this stuff about how good you're doing with your training. It was actually very sweet," she added quietly.

Wow, he actually said that about me? I knew he thought that I was very skilled and had a lot of promise, but to actually recommend me for a mission? I know it was probably just his attempt to win me back again. But this time he actually hit pretty close to home. Even little trips like this could be dangerous, so I guess he trusted me as far as he trusted other guardians. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"So when is this trip?" I asked looking forward to it slightly.

"Tomorrow," Lissa said with a smile of her own showing now that she could see that I wasn't so distressed over Dimitri.

"So what are you going to get?" I asked because I knew that Lissa wouldn't be able to resist diving into a whole detailed list of the things that she wanted to get and things that she wanted me to look at with her and so on. And I wasn't disappointed.

"Well first I have to go and see if there are any cute pink beanies and scarfs because the winter wear gear here is a fashion nightmare! And then of course I will have to find shoes to go with them but only after I get a fluffy indoors coat that I can wear around the inside of the log. Oh but my belt has to go with it too! And then..." And on she went.

But that was what I wanted. I needed to get my head in gear and sort things out and I couldn't do that with Lissa probing me for information on how I felt. Better to keep her happy and talking while I sorted things out.

DPOV

I was doing what I was told to do. In all my life I never had a problem with following orders, I was responsible and reliable and followed my orders right to every single word. But this order didn't come from headmistress Kirova or even from my superiors. This order came from someone much scarier when they wanted to be. This order came not only from my sister, but the Princess as well.

Flashback

"_How are you going to help me win Rose back?" I asked, desperate for anything that Lissa might know._

_"Well first, you are going to have to get her to trust you again. There can be no love without trust."_

_I just nodded my head, Lissa and my sister would get along far too well I realized._

_"So you should do some training exercises on that, get her to guide you through an obstacle course blindfolded or something. Let her know that you trust her instead of getting her to trust you again. That will take much longer, seeing as how Rose doesn't give out her trust easily and once you get it, if you lose it, you had better be prepared to go through hell and back to gain it again."_

_I nodded my head. I'm sure I could think of something._

_"Next you need to show her that you are truly sorry. Don't even try to convince her to give you a second chance, but focus on showing her how sorry you are. You might earn some sympathy from that."_

_I wasn't to sure how I could do that. "Every time that I have tried to say sorry to her, she just yells at me."_

_"That's because it still hurts her to think about it. You need to show her you're sorry without saying the words. On the rare occasion that we fought and Rose didn't forgive me right away like she usually dose, I would just surprise her with a bag of donuts. But I think that this is a little bit more serious than that," she tapped her chin thinking._

_"Rose would never admit this because she thinks that it makes her seem shallow, but she loves receiving gifts. They don't have to be big or expensive, but just showing that you care enough to do it, means more to her. A gift that you made yourself or something personal to you would mean even more._

_"And finally, I'm going to throw my weight as a royal and get an outing planned for me and a few friends and get Rose and you to guard us as well as a few others. I'll tell her that you suggested it and make you sound like you think that she's the best thing since sliced black bread. She will probably think that this is another one of your scams, but it will still make her happy that you think she's that good of a Novice."_

_I just blinked and said the first thing that came to my mind." How do you know about black bread?" Oh, yeah, that was the right question to ask right now!_

_"My parents brought some back after a trip to Russia, now back on track."_

_She paused for a bit, thinking of anything else, but coming up empty. "That will do for now, but we will need more."_

End flashback

And I had more. After I got the go ahead for this trip, I asked for an extra long break to get the things that I needed to make our time in the cabin unforgettable. I was going to do what Lissa said. I was going to focus this training session on trust and take it slowly from there. I was rushing Rose too fast I realized, I was telling her how sorry I was in one breath and asking for a second chance with the next. I needed to go slower and not make her feel like she's being cornered.

I was finishing setting up what we were doing for the day just as Rose showed up. Let the games begin.

RPOV

I walked over to the open field where we would be doing our morning training and couldn't resist trying to raise one eyebrow. In front of me was one of those baseball pitching machine that they have for people that want to practice their swing but don't have anyone to throw the ball.

"What's with the baseball machine?" I asked with a confused look. _And were did he get it?_

"This is what we are going to be doing today," Dimitri said not sounding at all like he was kidding.

"So you want to play baseball? I'm not sure it that counts as training, but hey it's the favorite American past time so I'm game if you are," I said just to annoy him. There was no way that we were just going to play a nice friendly game of baseball. Unless this was him trying to make nice with me again.

"No we're not going to play baseball. As I'm sure you know by now, tomorrow you and two other Novices will be going out on a field test, so this is a great building exercise. In the field, you need to make split second decisions and know that the people around you won't let you down and will have your back."

"So if were not playing baseball then what's with the machine?" I asked not seeing where this was going.

"Take a closer look at the machine," Dimitri said, so I did. It looked pretty ordinary to me, a long tube that the balls shot out from, a little motor to generate the air that threw the balls, a basket that held the balls...a bit bigger than necessary... but nothing out of the ordinary.

"Ok I give up, what are we going to be doing with this oh so special ball throwing device of yours?" I asked with a bit too much sarcasm.

"We aren't going to be doing anything, you are," he said as he bent down and got a strip of fabric out of a bag and picked up a staff. He started walking, putting a good amount of distance between us and the machine as he did.

"In the field, you don't have time to go over strategy, you have to move in sync and work with the other guardians that will cover you," he stopped and turned to back the machine.

"So that's what I'm doing," he said as he tied the piece of fabric around his head. "I'm putting my trust in you," He said looking at me dead in the eyes.

"W...what do you mean?" I asked a sinking feeling forming in my stomach.

"I'm going to put on this blindfold and hold onto the staff," he said picking it up and holding it wide leaving a lot of space in the middle. "And you are going to stand in between me and the staff. When the machine starts, it will throw balls as us, you will move the staff to block them. You will guide my movements and I will trust that you won't let the balls hit me.

I gulped. "You want me to move the staff and block the balls while you are blindfolded?" I asked not believing it. I could purposely move him into the path of the balls and he wouldn't know.

"Yes," he said slipping the blindfold on, but not covering his eyes as he looked me straight in the eyes again. "It's all about trust." A warm feeling spread over me, he was putting all his trust in me. If he wanted to be mean, he could have blindfolded me and moved me around like a puppet to hit the balls. But instead he was putting himself in the line of fire.

I just nodded. "Ok." I walked over and took the staff and Dimitri came up behind me and placed his hands on either side of mine and got ready. My breath caught at how close he was. We had sparred and touched a bit, but this was the closest that we had been since that intense and passionate kiss. I tried to shake off how being so close to him was affecting me and got ready to move.

"Are you ready?" Dimitri asked quietly. I nodded my head.

"Ok." He pushed a button on a remote and pulled down his blindfold.

The first ball came flying through the air. I raised up the staff and deflected it with ease. Then the next came but that one went high so I didn't bother trying to deflect it. But then I heard an "ohff." And realized that while it was too high for me to worry about, Dimitri was 6'7!

"Sorry," I said and kicked myself for not thinking of his height. I was more careful with the next few balls and made sure not to let them hit Dimitri again. I sudden thought of revenge came to my mine, and it was tempting. _"Aaaaw just once, what could it hurt?"_ the little devil on my shoulder said.

So the next time a ball came a little high, I "accidentally" missed it and it hit Dimitri's shoulder.

"Umph," he grunted. I felt a little happy, but at the same time I didn't like him being in pain. So after that I just did my best and deflected the rest of the balls.

After about twenty balls or so the machine beeped- and then it sped up! Suddenly I was hitting two balls at once and having to move much faster to keep up. But even with Dimitri's extra height and weight, he was surprising easy to move around. He didn't hesitate in letting me move him around, or have such a tight grip that I couldn't move. He really was letting me be in complete control.

Soon the machine beeped again, but this time it was to say that it had run out of balls. I lowered the staff and was panting a bit as Dimitri reached up and took off his blindfold.

"You did very well Rose, you only missed two balls," he said with a smile that made the ice around me feel warm.

"Thanks," I said, with a little smile. He really put himself on the line, I just hope that I wasn't next.

"Now because we are going to be going out on a human time schedule I'm going to cancel our afternoon lesson so you can get more sleep. So I'm going to give you an hour for breakfast then I want you to come back for another lesson."

I just nodded, that was a good idea.

He shut down the machine and I slowly walked away. That had been one hell of a session.

DPOV

After grabbing a quick breakfast, I went over a list of the shops that I found online. I had a pretty good idea what I was going to get Rose but I was still deciding. I had about three different ideas going through my head and I wasn't sure which one would work best. I could ask Lissa, but I didn't have her number and I didn't want Rose seeing us together. Lissa was the best chance I had at winning Rose back and I wasn't about to go and blow it.

In Russia, it was tradition to give the girl that you loved an uneven number of red Roses as a sign of love, an even number was a bad omen. But I knew that Rose hated getting rose related things. It was also a very big thing to give chocolate. And that was definitely the way to go with Rose. Mmmm maybe I could get her chocolate roses?

Yeah, that would do...suddenly I had a perfect idea! It was very clichéd but it always seemed to work in the movies. Deciding on that, I went to the next idea, then I decided that I would just go all out and get everything that I could think of and hope that one of them worked.

Decision made, I went back to setting up for the next part of our training. I was actually shaking a bit after this morning's session. After those first two misses, I realized what a perfect opportunity for revenge that I had handed Rose. I said that I was willing to do anything to prove to Rose how sorry I was and I meant it. So if the price was letting her hit me with baseballs, than I would pay it.

And that was just the warm up, what I was going to do now was the real test. I wanted to see how this would go before I jumped into the deep end, but if there was ever a time for Rose to get payback it would be this. But Rose needed to know that I trusted her, so I had to put myself on the line. Again.

I looked down at my watch. Rose was ten minuets late, so by her standards, she should be here any m-

"Ready for more torture?" she asked in a bright voice from behind me. I had to fight a smile, I knew that at least one of those hits this morning had to be on purpose.

"As a matter of fact yes," I said and handed her a thicker staff than this morning. "Spin that around a few times and get used to the weight." She did so. After I felt that she was comfortable enough, I grabbed the blindfold and started walking.

"Why the different staff? I liked the lighter one, it was easier to move," she said as we got into position.

"Because the other one wouldn't be strong enough for what we are going to be doing now." I told her as I got the blindfold ready.

"What do you mean?" she asked me, suspicion creeping into her voice.

"Look at the machine." I told her. After a few seconds, I saw her spine stiffen.

"Those aren't balls in there," she said in a quiet whisper.

"No, the balls were just a warm up. Now we are going to use rocks," I said and saw her stiffen even more.

"You're not seriously going to get me to guide you while you're blindfolded again are you?" she said with a slight panic in her voice this time. I couldn't help the happy feeling that sprung up, no matter how mad she was with me, she didn't want me to get hurt.

"I believe in you Rose, you won't let me get hurt," I said and took a chance by putting my hand on her shoulder. She looked up at me and I saw more emotion in her eyes than I have in a month. I desperately wanted to bend down and kiss her but the point of this exercise was to gain her trust back. If I just kept kissing her, she was just going to keep getting angry at me. So instead I just said,

"I trust you with my life." And put my blindfold on and felt her step in front of me with the staff. I hit the remote and took a deep breath. These rocks weren't too large, but if I got hit by one in the wrong place, or just too many of them in general than I would be in serious trouble. But if I wanted Rose to trust me, I had to show her that it went both ways.

I heard a sound at the first rock went sailing threw the air and felt Rose move to deflect it. So far so good. The next few came and none of them touched me. After the first twenty, the speed picked up and I could almost feel Rose's determination not to let me get hurt.

Quicker then I would have believed, it was almost up to the last rock as it flew out of the machine and came at us. I felt Rose move to block it. But then her foot slipped a bit and she shifted a little bit too far. I heard the rock hit the staff but not hard enough. The rock ricocheted off and grazed my cheek.

"Oh no, I'm so sorry! Are you ok?" I heard Rose ask as she tore off my blindfold. I wasn't hurt bad, really just a scratch. But Rose was looking at me with so much fear and concern. She put her hand over my cheek to stop the bleeding.

"I'm sorry, my foot...it...it slipped and I wasn't f...fast enough and-"

"It's ok Rose, I'm fine," I told her as I looked into her beautiful brown eyes, eyes that I had missed seeing shine with love and kindness.

We both just looked at each other for a minute, afraid to say anything, when suddenly the most amazing thing happened. Rose reached up and gently pressed her lips to mine in a soft kiss.

I was so stunned that I didn't even move for a few seconds, but then I started to gently kiss her back. I longed to dive in and give her a raw and deep kiss like the last one that we shared, but this kiss said something different. This kiss was Rose showing me that deep down inside of her, that she still cared for me.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and gently pulled her closer to me and deepened the kiss a bit while still keeping it slow and sweet. The last thing I wanted to do was scare Rose away after finally making progress.

After a few minutes she gently pulled away and stepped back. I didn't want her to but if I kept holding onto her then she just would have gotten angry and broken free.

"Roza," I whispered softly, it just slipped out.

"I have to go," she said before leaving. But this time she didn't cry or run away, she just turned and left.

I let out a deep breath. YES! That was EXACTLY the kind of progress that I had been hoping to get! She had kissed me! My beautiful, sweet Roza, after running away from me for so long had just reached up and kissed me! My lips were still tingling from it. And the best part was that she didn't cry! It was such an odd thought, but after last time seeing her in so much pain, I never wanted to cause her pain. But this time it had been her choice, she had been the one in control and she had chosen to reach up and kiss me. I had the biggest, stupidest smile on my face and I didn't even care.

I couldn't wait to try out my plans now. After a kiss like that, I was sure that I could win back Roza's heart.

**Ooooooo a kiss from Rose,could be our ice princess's heart is starting to melt.**

**What tricks do you think Dimitri is going to pull to try and win Rose back?**

**What will Adrain do if he finds out?**

**and what crazy thing will I come up with in the next chapter? Well review and find out;)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: yeah it's almost midnight so I'm not going to bother,you all know it anyway**

_I let out a deep breath. YES! That was EXACTLY the kind of progress that I had been hoping to get! She had kissed me! My beautiful, sweet Roza, after running away from me for so long had just reached up and kissed me! My lips were still tingling from it. And the best part was that she didn't cry! It was such an odd thought, but after last time seeing her in so much pain, I never wanted to cause her pain. But this time it had been her choice, she had been the one in control and she had chosen to reach up and kiss me. I had the biggest, stupidest smile on my face and I didn't even care._

_I couldn't wait to try out my plans now. After a kiss like that, I was sure that I could win back Roza's heart._

RPOV

I walked back to my room in a daze, going between feeling shocked and slightly happy about kissing Dimitri again and absolutely furious with myself for being so stupid! What had I been thinking? Kissing Dimitri like that! After all the hard work I put into being a total bitch to him and then I go ahead and give him a clear sign that there may be hope for us yet. How could I be so stupid? I mentally kicked myself as I walked into my room and threw myself onto my bed. I had kissed him! After everything I had done, I just had to go and throw it all away.

But oh what a kiss it had been! His lips had been so gentle on mine, not hard and demanding like last time. And he had let me control the kiss, set the pace. I could tell that all the hunger and passion of our last kiss was just waiting under the surface, and it was all mine if I wanted it, but this kiss had been different. It had held longing and love and all the things that I couldn't let myself feel for him if I was going to be able to walk away with my heart intact.

But mad as I was with myself, I couldn't pretend that I didn't know why I had done it and Dimitri did too. I closed my eyes and remembered the way he had looked at me, like we could be overrun by an angry hoard of Strigoi and he wouldn't have worried as long as he had me at his back.

I mean trusting me not to let him get pummeled by baseballs was bad enough, but rocks? He could have been seriously hurt! And somehow I knew that if I had asked him to just stand there all morning and get hit with baseballs he would, he would do anything to prove to me how sorry he was.

I was still mad at him for finding a weakness in my shields and exploring it so well. So what if he trusted me with as far as a life or death situation, that didn't mean that I could trust him. And now I would have to do something really big and stupid involving Adrian to throw him off the scent.

As if thinking about him had summoned him, I was suddenly sucked into a spirit dream. I hadn't even realized that I had fallen asleep.

"Well hello there Little Dhampir, your aura is looking exceptionally bright today. Had another stolen kiss with your cradle robber?" he joked, but I knew that he knew that he was right. He could see the love that I was trying to hide but that refused to be shoved into a cupboard.

"I just don't know what to do," I said as I walked over to the hammock that was hanging from the trees. Today Adrian had imagined us in a nice rain forest, I could hear water running and birds calling, it was very relaxing.

"The more time I spend around him, the more I have to fight to stop myself from forgiving him and jumping into his arms," I complained as I threw my leg over the side of the hammock to gently rock myself back and forth.

"And would that be such a bad thing?" Adrian asked as he walked over and took over rocking the hammock. "I can see how much you still love him, why not give him a second chance? You only live once...or in your case twice, which means it's even more important to take a chance at being happy. I know I would risk any pain there was to have my Lilly girl back in my arms if I had somehow screwed things up enough to lose her," Adrian said with a far off look in his eyes.

Dimitri had looked at me like that not to long ago. "How is Sydney?" I asked because I couldn't take thinking about that kiss anymore, and like with Lissa, it was easier distracting Adrian than talking about what I didn't want to talk about.

A troubled look crossed his face. "She's dodging all questions about her involvement with me very well, she's not just a really pretty face. But we are going to have to step up our public PDA to get people talking more," Adrian said biting his bottom lip.

"Fine with me, after what I just did, I need to do something stupid to get Dimitri off my tail."

"And what was that?" Adrian asked raising one eyebrow. And because it was a dream and because I was in a bad mood, I finally did what I had always wanted to do whenever someone did that around me. I reached over and smacked him on the side of his head.

"Ow! What was that for?!" he asked as he stepped back.

I laughed. "Because everyone in the world seems to be able to do that but me, so I finally snapped," I said with a huge grin.

"I can now understand what all of your friends mean when they say "Rose logic," he said with a cheeky grin. Then I sat up so I could look him in the eyes and told him about Dimitri and his "trust building exercises" and how I had been so overwhelmed after he had trusted me so much and gotten hurt that I had kissed him.

"So basically the man that you're desperately in love with did an incredibly dangerous thing to prove to you that he trusts you and you're mad because you rewarded that trust with a light kiss?" Adrian asked, raising one eyebrow again, but this time staying out of hitting range.

"Basically yeah. Except in my world that's a bad thing, because now he's going to try harder than ever to win me back," I said miserably and set myself back down on the hammock.

"And you don't want that?" Adrian asked but it didn't really sound like a question.

I shook my head. "Part of me wants exactly that but the other part is yelling at me for even considering it because it hurt so bad the first time." But with the way things were going, the part that wanted to kiss Dimitri breathless was winning.

"A girl's heart is very sensitive," I said trying to convince myself as well as him not to let myself become that vulnerable again. "You can't just say you're sorry and put a bandaged over the hurt and say that everything is going to be ok from now on! You have to prove it!" I said angry at Dimitri for doing this to me, for making me feel this way, for showing me love and then taking it away from me, for everything.

"And how would he prove it to you hmmm? By trusting you with tasks that are above your pay grade?" Adrian asked with an "I win" grin.

"So I take it that you've heard about the trip to the mall tomorrow?" I asked with a sigh. I had been so excited about that when Lissa told me, even spending extra time with Dimitri hadn't seemed so bad. But now it just seemed cruel to make me do this. Especially after kissing him like that.

"Well I _was_ invited! And this is a big deal, apparently they only let the best Novices on field assignments early, you should be happy they he recommended you for it."

Yeah, and I might of been if he hadn't only done it to try and win me back. But even if that was the case, Dimitri was a very responsible guardian. If he didn't think that I was capable of doing this then there was no way he would endanger innocent Moroi lives.

I shook my head. "Ok enough talking Doctor Phil, what "big thing" are we going to pull to get people talking?"

Adrian grinned his now famous "devil may care"smile. "Oh I have something in mind."

I woke up in time for dinner. A few more hours sleep and I would be all good to go for a human time schedule. I jumped into the shower and walked down to the dining room. After grabbing food, I walked over to where my friends were sitting, when I was joined my Adrian.

"Well hello there beautiful," Adrian said taking my tray like a gentlemen. He wanted us to make a bigger deal of sitting together in a group to encourage talk.

"Hey," I said as we sat down at our table, where everyone else was staring towards what I assumed was their now boyfriends/girlfriends.

"Well, don't you all look cozy," I said just having to ruin the moment. They all jumped back a bit and tried to look innocent and failing.

"Hey Rose," Jill said blushing and suddenly looking very interested in her food.

"Are you two all set for tomorrow?" I asked Eddie and Mason.

"You bet," Mason said with a huge grin, he loved a challenge.

"But it's going to be hard being professional when we have these two lovely ladies to watch all day," Mason said and Jill and Mia both blushed the same shade of red.

"Well you had better because I'm not going to stop a Strigoi from chewing on your sorry ass's if you two are too busy checking out your _girlfriends ass's_ instead of doing your job and keeping an eye out for danger," I said with a playful smile. I knew how seriously they both took being guardians but it was just way too fun teasing them.

"Don't worry about us, and have you considered that you might be the one in danger of losing your focus? You are after all the one dating pretty boy over there," Eddie said looking at Adrian.

"You think I'm pretty?" Adrian said with a flirtatious grin. "Why if I had known that you swung that way I would have approached you first instead of Rose." Adrain smiled and I could see him holding back his laughter.

"That's not what I meant!" Eddie shouted over Mason's historical laughter. I laughed too, it was too good a come back not to. But I was in no danger of being to distracted by Adrian to do my job. Dimitri on the other hand...no, while we were on the job he would be professional. But the car ride there and back would be interesting.

Dinner finished and Adrian asked in front of everyone if he could walk me back to my room. I could have been imagining it, but I swear that both Mason and Eddie had shot Adrian looks. After we were alone, I asked Adrian if he had noticed it.

"Oh yeah, they're just making good on their threat," he said like it was no big deal and he got threatened all the time, which considering his lifestyle, he might.

"What threat?" I asked not expecting that answer.

"Well, after out first "official date" your two besties cornered me the next date and warned me that if I was just playing around with you and just saw you as another number on a scoreboard, then they were going to make my life very "interesting."

I gasped. Dhampirs did NOT threaten Moroi, especially royal Moroi. And DEFINITELY not the Queen's favorite nephew! They could be thrown in jail just for the attempt.

"I can't believe that they did that," I said still shocked.

"I can. They both love you and don't want you to get mistreated by some price of Moroi trash like other Dhampir girls are. They are seriously two friends worth having," Adrian said with a nostalgic smile. I wonder if he ever had friends that would do that for him.

"Yeah, they're pretty great," I said with a huge grin of my own. I was so lucky to have those two knuckle heads looking out for me.

We walked in silence for a while before we got to my room. "And here we are," Adrain said making a big deal out of bowing. We looked around, but didn't see anyone to put on a show for. So he just smiled and walked away.

So far we hadn't had to kiss for real yet, but soon we would if we wanted to make this dating act convincing. But right now kissing anyone was too much for me to think about. So I just walked over to my bed and hoped for a few more hours of a dreamless sleep.

I was being shaken awake by a noise that I swear if it went any higher it would only be hearable by dogs.

"Wake up Rose! It time to get ready to shop!" Lissa cried in my ears as she bounced on my bed.

"Mmmmmm I'mm up," I mumbled.

"No you're not, now move it or there won't be any breakfast left for you," Lissa said knowing my weakness.

"Mmmm mean," I muttered and pulled myself out of bed. Surprisingly enough I got my wish. No dream walking from Adrian and no unwanted dreams of Dimitri. I got up and got ready for my big day. I looked over the outfits that I had packed. I was going to be near guarded so I didn't need to dress up too much, just something casual that a girl like me would wear with a group of friends to the mall that would be give me enough movement to fight if need be. I chose a nice top that wasn't clingy, as I didn't want to distract Dimitri this time, and a pair of jeans that was flexible enough for me to do a high kick if needed.

I decided to wear my hair up in case of trouble, so I stilled it in a net bun that went with what I was wearing. I wasn't currently allowed a stake but would be given one before we left the wards. I looked myself over in the mirror and decided that I was good to go. Lissa was still in the shower and would be for another twenty minutes. I don't know how that girl does it. I would get bored just standing under there like that.

Not wanting to find out if her threat of breakfast had been a bluff or not, I decided to head down to the dining room to make sure. You did not want to be on a car trip with a hungry Rose.

I got down there and saw that there was in fact a small buffet breakfast being served. I quickly grabbed a plate and piled up bacon, eggs, and hash brown before walking over to sit with the others that were going on this trip.

"Good morning love birds," I said and laughed as they jumped at being caught again. When were they going to stop getting embarrassed at being in a relationship?

"Morning Rose, I knew threatening you with not enough food would get you down here on time," Mason laughed.

"So it was your idea," I said as I gave him my best death glare. I grinned when he cringed back.

"Where's Lissa?" Christian asked.

"In the shower," I said not needing to offer any further explanation. We all ate in silence for a while when the doors opened again and the other guardians that were going on this trip walked in. I deliberately looked down at my food and didn't even risk a glance at Dimitri. After what I did yesterday, he was probably going to shoot me _goo goo_ eyes when the others weren't looking.

"Good morning," Jill greeted them happily and the others muttered greetings of their own.

"Anything special planned for today?" Jack asked with a smile. He was a nice guy and he actually cared about the answer, he wasn't just making mindless small talk.

"Well I need to try and get some anniversary gift ideas for Lissa but I won't be able to actually get anything unless we split up for some reason," Christian said because Lissa wasn't here yet.

"Well in my experience, it's best to go etiher with chocolates or jewelry. But I don't have a lot of experience so what do I know?" Jack laughed.

"Get Lissa some Taboo perfume and a pink teddy bear holding a heart with something about love on it. You know she would love that," I told him. I wanted Lissa to be happy and I knew what my best friend wanted.

"Mmmmm maybe," Christian said while thinking about it. And that was the closest that I was ever going to get to "good idea Rose."

A few minuets later, Lissa showed up and soon the trip was on the way. We decided to take two cars for safety so I ended up in the car with Lissa, Christian, Adrian and of course Dimitri while the others went in the other car.

At first it wasn't so bad, Lissa chatted most of the way about what she wanted to do and see. I would chime in sometimes but mostly stayed out of the conversation. But not because I wanted to, it was because I was in the role of guardian, so I had to sit up front with Dimitri.

He was silent most of the trip, not saying much. And as much as I hated it, I couldn't stop relaxing in his presence. Just sitting next to him, not talking or touching or ANYTHING and I still felt incredibly at peace. Man these two weeks in the cabin coming up were going to be a killer.

We met up with the rest of our group when we got to the mall and divided up. Mason, Jack and I started off as near guard while Eddie and the two other guards were far and we would switch later. Lissa set a demanding pace as she stormed through the crowds, determined to get what she had her mind set on. It was actually quite funny watching the far guards trying to follow us without being too obvious about it.

After a few hours of Hurricane Lissa, we were allowed to sit down for lunch but we had to do it in shifts. Mason, Jack and I were first, then Eddie,Stevie and...wait

"Where's Guardian Belikov?" I asked in alarm as I reached for my stake.

"He asked for an extra long lunch break to get supplies for your upcoming training trip," Said Jack with a smile. I didn't like the sound of that, was it too much to hope for that Dimitri was just out getting extra blankets and canned food?

"What do you need Belikov for when you could talk to me instead?" Adrian asked immediately taking the spot light off of why I was so worried about Dimitri's absence.

"Because you think that you're the prettiest person in the room and think that a good conversation would be about what hair products would be best to give you that "just rolled out of bed " hair style that you love so much?" Eddie said as he walked over to sit down for his break. We all cracked up at that.

"True, but beauty like this must be maintained," Adrian said playing along instead of taking insult.

"Watch it Rose or he will start stealing your makeup," Mason said and we all cracked up again.

Lissa's POV

After lunch I made the boys wait outside while I dragged Rose into Victoria's Secret to do some lingerie shopping.

"Come on Rose! I got sent an email of there VIP list of stock and we just HAVE to go and try them on!" I begged as I pulled Rose into the store because she was going to need a heck of a lot more than just warm clothes on this training trip of hers.

"Liss I don't even need any underwear," Rose complained, but she had no idea what she was talking about.

"Come one Rose, your dating Adrian now so you need some sexy lingerie to torture him with," I said even though I knew that excuse wouldn't fly.

"But I'm only pretend dating him," she whispered in my ear. Good, I wanted to make sure that she wasn't actually buying her own charade. Adrian could never make her happy.

"I know but word will get out that you're buying it and besides, don't you want to be prepared if you ever find a guy that you do want to wear it for?" I asked putting a little bit of compulsion into my words.

A sad look came over her face. "I guess," she said not looking at me. But it didn't matter ,I knew what she was thinking.

_"If I ever fall in love again, which I won't."_

Well she would if I had anything to say about it!

"Come on! Just buy some sexy stuff with me!" I begged with big eyes that I knew she couldn't resist.

"Oh fine!" she said with a smile creeping onto her lips. I ended up making her get several matching bra and panty sets and even some sexy corsets and teddies. She showed me how she looked and DAMN! I hope that Dimitri had some tricks up his sleeves, because he would need all the luck he could get to win Rose back with a body like hers.

"Rose you look so sexy in that that even if you walk around fully clothed with that underneath you will still get arrested for indecent exposure," I laughed as Rose walked back into the changing room. We had goton a lot of stuff overall so I asked Mason to run our bags back to the car with the other group while Rose and I finished up in here with Jack as guard outside.

But as we were about to leave, the sales lady came up to me with a way too big smile. I couldn't really blame her, with the amount of money that Rose and I had just spent here she probably thought that we some rich kids on a shopping spree with daddy's credit card.

"Are you two ready to see our VIP range? We keep it in the back room because of how exclusive it is and the designers won't let just anyone wear their label," she said thinking that she was complementing us by saying that because we were rich, we were better than other people. And it was because of people like _her_ that I had trouble finding real friends in school.

But I _did_ want to get some of there VIP line, the photos really did look good and Christian and my anniversary was coming up...

I put on a bright smile. "Sure, come on Rose," I said as we followed her back behind the counter and through the door. Inside was much colder than in the story and it was much darker, not that I had much trouble seeing but the lady thought that we were human.

"Why is it so cold and dark in here?" I asked and felt Rose tense up behind me. I felt a little on edge but we were just going down to the back room a lingerie store...

"It's better for the fabric to be in cold storage before use and bright lights would fade the color," the sales lady said as she kept walking. How far back was she keeping the stock? Shouldn't someone have been out front manning the counter while she did this?

Apparently Rose was thinking the same thing.

"Why are we going so far? And isn't it only sunlight that fades clothes?" she asked in a tight tone of voice and I knew that she was reaching for her stake.

"Sunlight isn't good for the designers," was all she said as she opened another door. But Rose had apparently had enough of this and moved in front of me in a protective crouch.

"I think that we've got enough lingerie for one day Liss, let's go and meet up with our friends," Rose said in a no nonsense voice and I was already backing up. Something didn't feel right here.

"Oh I'm afraid that your frends are going to be quite busy for awhile," the creepy sales lady smiled as she turned around...wearing a gas mask.

"What are-" I asked before there was a loud popping sound. And then suddenly a gas canister flew through the air and a thik film of gas was coating the air and I started coughing.

"Lissa run!" Rose yelled as she sliced her sake at the sales lady but she had already ran out of our sight. We were trapped.

"Rose!" I cried just because I didn't know what else to do.

"It's ok Liss, just hold your breath and I will call Dimitri," Rose called out to me, but I was already getting dizzy.

"Dimitri! Mason! We need help! We're under attack! Can anybody hear me?" she cried. I didn't hear any response. The last thing that I remember is Rose coming over to me before she collapsed, like she could shield me with her body even after she was out cold and a voice laughing in the background.

**well we always knew that sails lady's were kind of evil,but I think that she was a bit over kill. SOOO Who attaked them? **

**What at happpned to the other group? **

**Will the lingerie survive? Review and you will find out faster;) **


	11. Chapter 11

**Sorry sorry sorry!**

**Disclaimer: skip it!**

_"Dimitri! Mason! We need help! We're under attack! Can anybody hear me?" she cried. I didn't hear any response. The last thing that I remember is Rose coming over to me before she collapsed, like she could shield me with her body even after she was out cold and a voice laughing in the background._

DPOV

I had been running around as fast as I could for my entire break trying to find everything that I needed for Rose and our two weeks alone together, and so far so good. I had all the basics: chocolates, candles, music, not alcoholic champagne. I was NOT going to risk Rose saying that I got her drunk and took advantage of her. If she decides to give me a second chance, she was going to do it sober. I also made sure to get the cabin stocked with warm extra fluffy blankets. I knew how little tolerance that Rose had to the cold even with her Turkish roots. I ordered the pantries to be stocked with some of Rose's favorite foods and also the ingredients that I needed to cook for her. I know that this is what they say about men. But the way to Rose's heart may very well be through her stomach.

I also got a few other things that hopefully would make the rest of our time together easier. I knew that Rose wasn't shallow enough to fall for me just because I did romantic things and got her a lot of presents. But that wasn't what this trip was about, it was showing her that I was worth a second chance. And Lissa had said that it was the thought that counts, so I made sure to have a trump card in my arsenal. I just hoped that she would accept it.

I looked down at my watch and saw that I was almost out of time. I quickly paid for what I was getting and ran back to my post. I was surprised and a little embarrassed to find that the girls were at Victoria's Secret.

"Hey Belikov, did you get me a present?" asked Jack as he grinned like an idiot. But it was actually nice having him around, his carefree attitude made things seem a little brighter than they really were in dark times.

"Only if you like trail mix and cold rations," I said as I came up to them.

"Aww why torture the poor girl more than you have to? You have a kitchen in that cabin, use it. I know you can cook so treat the lady to a nice dinner after a hard day of you telling her that she's doing everything wrong." he laughed. Little did he know how right he was.

"Where are the rest of the group?" I asked because only me and Jack were outside the store.

"Well Mia and Jill went in there for a bit but got bored and came back out but the Princess and Rose wanted to stay. I think they just wanted a little girl time. So we decided that since you were on break, I would stay with the Princess and the rest would go off and do their own thing- and look, there they are now."

I looked behind me and saw the rest of our party coming towards us.

"The mall is closing now but I didn't want to leave with this group until you got back, with an even number we could be jumped easier," Stevie said and I nodded. I looked around and saw that we were just about the last people here.

"Is the Princess and Rose ready to go?" I asked just as they exited the store.

"Rose and I want to look at some more stuff so could one of you please take our things back to the car with you while we finish up here?" Lissa asked in a sweet voice.

"I will," Mason said then smiled at Mia like he was trying to impress her. I didn't like leaving Rose alone, but it was still daylight for a little while longer and she had Jack with her, so I followed the rest of the group back to the car. But after we loaded in all of our things and started moving the Moroi into the car first for safety, I heard a loud whoosh - and then suddenly what looked like a giant parachute was being thrown over us!

"We're under attack!" I cried out and grabbed my stake as Strigoi started coming in under the parachute! It was much harder to fight them in such a confined space. Every time I attacked one in my sight, the parachute would move and with the Strigois' speed, I wouldn't be able to track their movements and block their hits.

Mid- fight, I heard my walkie-talkie going off. "Dimitri! Mason! We need help! We're under attack! Can anybody hear me?"

ROSE! Oh no they had her too! I had to end this fight quickly, I had to save my Roza!

I managed to stake one of them, but then I heard a horror filled scream and saw that the Strigoi were going after the Novices to get to the Moroi. I ran over to help them, which wasn't easy with the parachute moving all over the place and getting tangled under my feet, and got there just in time to see one of the Strigoi bite Mason!

"NOOOO!" Mia screamed and tried to get out of the car to get to him. But I stepped in front of her to stop her from going over there herself and made the Strigoi get his filthy fangs out of Mason's neck, but then another Strigoi jumped me from behind and he got away.

"MASON!" Mia cried again and jumped out of the car to go after him.

"Mia! Get back in the car!" Eddie cried but it was too late, the Strigoi had her.

I went to try to get her back, but I was too busy fighting for my life to see where she was being dragged off to. Then out of no where, the Strigoi on my back bursted into flames and fell off. I looked around and saw Christian getting out of the car and setting fire to the parachute over us. Soon all the Strigoi were gone.

"Is everyone ok?" Stevie asked as he looked around to make sure that no Strigoi were hiding under the car or anything.

"HELL NO," Eddie shouted. "In case you didn't notice, Mason and Mia just got kidnapped by a group of Strigoi!" Eddie shouted mad as anything. I could well understand, but right now I had something more important to worry about. I grabbed my walkie-talkie off my belt.

"Rose are you ok? Where are you? Can you hear me?" I asked frantically. I couldn't lose Rose, not like this. I needed to find her and hold her in my arms and tell her how much I loved her.

"Belikov what's wrong?" Stevie asked walking over to me and ignoring Eddie. I knew I didn't like this guy for a reason.

"Halfway through the fight, I got a distress call from Rose and the Princess, they were being attacked and Rose tried to call for help," I told him not taking my eyes off of the walkie-talkie. I knew it was dumb, but I felt that if I kept looking at it I might magically hear Rose's voice.

"The Princess is in danger!? We have to rescue her," Stevie said like it was the only thing that mattered. I know that as a guardian our motto is_ "they come first"_ but just because Rose and Mason, not to mention Jack if he was still alive, weren't Moroi doesn't mean that they weren't worthy of rescuing. And just because Mia wasn't a royal didn't make her any less in need of help.

But I didn't bother saying any of that, right now we had a job to do and if we moved fast enough, we still had a good chance of saving everyone.

"Ok, Eddie stay here and guard the Moroi while Stevie and I go after them and try to find the Princess and the others." It wasn't the best idea, leaving three Moroi here with just Eddie to guard them, especially after an attack. But with Christian's fire powers, it would be more like two guardians protecting two Moroi.

"We will do nothing of the sort!" Stevie said looking at me like I had lost my mind. "We will call in for back up and wait until we have a decent sized rescue party," he said looking happy with himself for taking charge.

"But that will take too much time, they might not last that long," Eddie said looking scared for his friends' lives.

"The others are of no concern, they will most certainly keep the Princess alive for a while for their own reasons and kill the lesser ones if they get hungry," Stevie said not looking like he cared either way.

"So your going to let the others die just because they're not royal?" I asked not believing what I was hearing. "Five people were captured! And they all deserve a rescue," I stood my ground. I was not going to let Stevie intimidate me just because he was a higher ranking guardian.

"Look I don't like it any better than you but we just don't have the man power so I'm going to call some in. You stand guard here while I do," Stevie said like that was all and the topic was over with. I walked over to Eddie on autopilot, thinking of something to do to get a rescue to Roza faster.

"We can't just sit here while we get more people! We need to do something!" Eddie said as I got closer.

"Please help them!" begged Jill.

"If you don't, I'll go in there myself," Adrian said surprising everyone. "I bet I can compel them all long enough to get our friends out," he finished. I may not like him, in fact I often fantasize about being able to punch him in the face, but seeing him actually stand up like this to help Rose, I couldn't hate him too much.

"I know, but were out numbered," I said still thinking.

"Why don't we just go in and ditch Stevie? He wouldn't even know until it was too late and then he would have to stay here and protect the others while we rescued Lissa and the rest of them," Christian said looking like he was about ready to torch Stevie himself if it would get him to Lissa faster.

Mmmm, me, Eddie and Christian would make a good team. But that would leave Stevie here to protect Jill and Adrian. Not bad odds. But...

"If we survive this, you could all get expelled and I'd get fired," I said making sure thet they knew what they were getting into. I didn't care if I lost my job. My life was pointless without Rose anyway, but I didn't want them to threw their future away.

"Do you really think that we would trade Rose and the others for that?" Eddie asked and Christian didn't even dignify what I said with a response.

"Ok then, let's get going before Stevie finishes his call."

RPOV

I woke up tied to a chair, not the best feeling in the world. In fact, I can't think of one good scenario that has come out of being knocked out and waking up tied to a chair. I looked around and was aware that I wasn't alone. Next to me on my left was Lissa, still unconscious but she didn't look hurt. On my right was Jack. He looked pretty banged up, but alive for now. He wasn't unconscious yet but he wasn't exactly with it either.

I looked around and expected us to still be in the back room of the lingerie shop. But I was surprised to see that we were in the center of the mall. It was brightly lit, but I could see out of the sky light that it was night outside, so no sun to the rescue. I looked up and saw that we were on the bottom level with all the other levels looking down on us. And there seemed to be some kind of fountain behind us.

Well, as evil layers go, the mall was a new one. I flexed my wrists to see how tight my ties were, but it was no good.

"So you're awake." I looked over to where I heared the voice was coming from. It was a Strigoi, no surprise there. He was tall so probably a Moroi before he was turned. And as cliche as it sounded, he had a plump English accent.

"The gas didn't have much of an affect on you, but then again it wasn't really meant to. Just enough to knock you out while we took care of you and got our real prize," he said looking over at Lissa.

"Touch her and see what happens," I threatened as I pulled at my ties again. Nothing.

"Come now Miss Hathaway, we both know that you won't be able to break out of that knot that you're tied in so why not just sit back and watch the show, it's about to begin," he said with a creepy smile.

"What are you-" but before I could finish, I heard screaming and yelling. The doors bursted open and in came two Strigoi carrying in an unconscious Mason and a furious Mia.

"You let us go right now or we will see who's immortal," she shouted as she struggled to break free of her captors. Wow, that girl had spunk.

"Mia," I called out, part worry and part relief that she was alive. She looked over at me.

"Rose!" she cried and once again tried to break free. But the Strigoi pushed her into a chair and started tying her up.

"Are you ok? Where are the others?" I asked. I hope no one was killed.

"They were all fine when I got captured," Mia said looking worriedly over at Mason. "What about you?" she asked.

"Fine for now, but I have a feeling that that's all about to change," I said and glared at our captor.

"What do you want with us?" I asked sounding more confident than I felt. I couldn't let this Strigoi know that he had more of an upper hand than he thought.

"I already have it," he said with a fang filled smile and looked over at Lissa. "The last Dragomir, oh what a prize. But to get to this point, I needed help and that's where you and your little friends come in," he said looking over us. "Once the others arrive, I will give you all over as payment so I alone can have the honor of sucking the last Dragomir dry," he said with far too much delight in his voice.

"So this was all a trap," Mia said to distract him. I had a sharp bit of my belt striking out, if I could just cut through the rope enough, I might be able to get out of this chair.

"Why of course it was my dear, do you think that I would be able to lure the last Dragomir into my waiting arms any other way?" English vamp asked as I kept trying. I told Mia with my eyes to keep it up. She understood.

"How did you do it?" she asked. Good idea, I knew that he wouldn't be able to resist gloating.

"Did the Princess by any chance mention to either of you about an email for a VIP lingerie line," he asked and waited for realization to wash over our faces.

"You sent her the email," I said not able to help it. I mentally kicked myself. I should have known, what kind of store sends out VIP emails to someone that hasn't ever shopped there before? It could have just been a sales pitch, but I still should have been more suspicious. And I would have been, if I weren't so busy thinking about Dimitri. I guess he was right, if we were to guard Lissa together then we would get in each other's way.

"Indeed I did and look how well it turned out," he said spreading his arms wide.

"How did you get her address," Mia asked, both getting the attention away from me and asking a valid question. Lissa was a royal Moroi, she wasn't exactly on many people's alert lists.

"Aaaah that would be where my spy comes into the picture." No name said with the creepiest smile yet.

"What!?" I asked stunned. "A spy?" Who would betray us like that? All the workers at the log were Human, only a few Moroi ran the place and they were trusted friends of the school. So that meant that it had to be one of ours.

"Who?" Mia asked, but I doubted that we would get an answer.

"Now now, that would be telling," Mystery man said with a smooth voice.

"Aaa yeah, that's why I asked, _DUR_," Mia said in her best sarcastic stuck up teenage girl voice. I almost laughed at the face no name pulled. He must be an old Strigoi if he was so shocked at the language that young people use today.

"True, but I was trying to give you an air of mystery," he said with shock and disapproval.

"Air huh? Well I prefer _water_!" Mia said and without using her hands she made a strong stream of water fly up out of the fountain and hit no name in the chest throwing him backwards.

DPOV

We ran off before Stevie could finish his call and went in the side entrance of the mall. For some reason the Strigoi left all the lights on even though they could see perfectly well in the dark. Christian, Eddie and I moved silently in combat crouches looking for where they might be. We started at Victoria's Secret, but then we heard voices and moved towards them instead.

We had just come up to the center of the mall on the top floor and looked down. There they were, all tied to chairs with some Strigoi pacing in front of them like he owned the place. Which he actually might. Some of the older ones had quite a lot of money built up over the years. Rose was awake and giving hell to her captor. _Of course she was,_ I thought dryly. She looked ok, not bloodied or beaten, _thank goodness_. Lissa was still unconscious but seemed unharmed. Jack looked like he got the worst of it though. I got as close as I could and listened in on what was going on.

"So you're awake," said the old Strigoi in front of them with an annoying English accent.

"The gas didn't have much of an affect on you, but then again it wasn't really meant to. Just enough to knock you out while we took care of you and got our real prize," he said looking over at Lissa. I clenched my fist that was holding the stake. Rose may be my primary concern, but I still cared deeply about Lissa and didn't like her being talked about like some prize for someone.

"Touch her and see what happens," Rose threatened in a deep voice. Good girl.

"Come now Miss Hathaway, we both know that you won't be able to break out of that knot that you're tied in, so why not just sit back and watch the show, it's about to begin," he said with a crepy smile that I wanted to wipe off of his face. Painfully.

"What are you-" Rose started to ask. But before she could, screaming and yelling was heard and it was coming from the lobby. The doors busted open and in came two Strigoi carrying Mason and Mia.

"You let us go right now or we will see who's immortal," Mia shouted as she struggled to break free. No wonder she and Rose were becoming friends.

"Mia!" Rose called and I looked back over at her. She was so worried about her friends, she probably hadn't even thought of herself yet.

"Rose!" Mia cried and tried to break free. But the Strigoi pushed her into a chair and tried her up.

"Are you ok? Where are the others?" Rose asked, worry filled her voice.

"They were all fine when I got captured," Mia said looking worriedly over at Mason. "What about you?" she asked.

"Fine for now, but I have a feeling that that's all about to change," Rose said and glared at her captor.

"What do you want with us?" Rose asked sounding strong and confident. _Never let them see you sweat,_ I thought to her with a smile.

"I already have it," the soon to be dead Strigoi said and looked over at Lissa. "The last Dragomir, oh what a prize. But to get to this point I needed help and that's were you and your little friends come in," he said looking over Rose and the others. I had to fight the urge to jump out and stake him right now, but he probably had back up somewhere and right now he was talking. He might reveal something without knowing it.

"Once the others arrive, I will give you all over as payment so I alone can have the honor of sucking the last Dragomir dry," he said and I wanted to hit him again.

"So this was all a trap?" Mia said. I'm not sure why but I was very interested in hearing what the answer would be.

"Why of course it was my dear. Do you think that I would be able to lure the last Dragomir into my waiting arms any other way?" He went on, not noticing that Rose was doing something behind her back. I hope she broke free soon, she would be a huge help.

"How did you do it?" Mia asked, exactly what I wanted to know.

"Did the Princess by any chance mention to either of you about an email from a VIP lingerie line," he asked the girls. What? Why would they get VIP emails? And why would Rose want sexy lingerie ...unless she was planning on needing it with Adrian. A sinking feeling spread it's way through me. She couldn't be thinking of going that far with Adrian could she? I started to panic, I loved her so much I couldn't bear the thought of her giving up her first time to someone who doesn't love her as much as me.

"You sent her the email," Rose said and I snapped my head back into the conversation. It didn't matter if Rose was thinking of sleeping with Adrian or not, right now all that mattered was getting her and the others out of there alive.

"Indeed I did,and look how well it turned out," the Strigoi turned and looked back at Rose.

But while the Strigoi was looking over at Rose, Mia looked up and saw us on the balcony. She wasn't stupid. She didn't call out or scream for help. She just kept quiet and tried to distract the Strigoi with more questions.

"How did you get her address?" Mia asked. Lissa was a royal Moroi, and the last Dragomir at that. She shouldn't be getting any human emails like that.

"Aaa and that would be where my spy comes into the picture," he smiles. _What! A spy?_

"What! A spy?" Rose asked. I loved how in sync we were.

"Who?" Mia asked, and I really hoped that he told her.

"Now now, that would be telling," Or not.

"Aaa yeah, that's why I asked _DUR_," Mia said in her best sarcastic stuck up teenage girl voice. She had obviously had a lot of practice at it.

"True, but I was trying to give you an air of mystery," he said with shocked, which was pretty funny.

"Air huh? Well I prefer _water_!" Mia said and without using her hands, she made a strong stream of water fly up out of the fountain and hit no name in his chest throwing him backwards. Realizing that now was the perfect opportunity, Eddie and I jumped into action and were down the escalator in less than thirty seconds.

"Men," the leader Strigoi yelled and about twenty Strigoi came running in through the doors surrounding us.

"Well well well, isn't this a nice surprise?" I heard an annoying English accent and turned to look at the lead Strigoi.

"I had hoped that you would come. Now there's more then enough food to go around and what a selection!" he said spreading his arms wide over all of us. I really needed to stake this guy.

"Let them go now or you're dead," I said in my most threatening voice. Even though Rose was still tied up, we were still pretty evenly matched, with Mia's water, when we untied her, and Christian's fire. All I had to do was get them untied and Rose could get them out of here.

"Oh I very much doubt that Guardian Belikov, you see more is going on than you know. While you might win this small match, the battle is far from over," he said with a smile. I really needed to find out this guy's name.

"What are you talking about?" Eddie asked. Stalling for the moment.

"I mean that Elly wasn't my only operative," he said and looked over to where a beautiful human woman was walking over to us. She stood next to the leader and took his hand lovingly.

"You!" Rose shouted. Well they clearly knew each other.

"Yes me," the woman, Elly said. "I'm surprised that you didn't question me earlier, just walking up to you like that and not even asking you your names and checking if you were on the list. It really was too easy. I guess that's why you're only a Novice," she smiled evilly.

Big mistake.

"Untie me and I will show you who's a Novice," Rose said and I think that she scared a few of the surrounding Strigoi.

"Elly here really was amazing, she was smart enough to figure out that there was no way that the Princess would be able to pass up a shopping trip on her holidays. And was able to create the fake VIP email and really ran things from the human side. I couldn't have don't it without her," English Strigoi said before kissing Elly on the cheek.

"So you see, it's pointless, there is no where you can go that I can't get to," he said and I decided that it was well and truly time to shut him up.

"You let them go right now or you're toast," I said, and then right on cue, Christian (who was on the top floor hiding until I gave the signal) set a ring of fire erupting around us and all the Strigoi started to panic and some just ran away. I let Eddie take charge of the attacking Strigoi while I ran over to Rose, but before I could cut her free, I heard a snap and the rope fell on the ground behind her. She jumped up and looked ready to go at the Strigoi without a weapon. Instead, I gave her my back up stake.

"Get the others out of here. Eddie, Christian and I will take care of these guys," I told her and tried to show her how happy I was that she was ok with my eyes. She didn't look happy about not getting revenge on the people that had held her captive, but she wasn't going to risk Lissa's life on her pride.

"You got it Comrade," Rose said and was off. I was halfway staking a Strigoi when I realized what she had just called me. Luckily, I figured out how to move soon after, but my mind was still on it. Eddie and I went back to back and he was almost as good a fighter as Rose. Christian was throwing big fire balls from the top floor and was taking them down three at a time and the Strigoi were so scared that they barely put up a fight when Eddie and I picked them off one by one.

But just as things were looking up, and that we were going to get away safely...I heard a loud angry English accent.

"Freeze," he shouted, I looked over at him...and my blood turned to ice. He had his hands around Mason's neck and was ready to twist.

"Now, you either all sit back down and be good little hostages or I snap this one's neck and drink him dry," English Strigoi said with an angry crazed smile.

This was not good.

**Oh no he got MASON!**

**whats going to happen?**

**will they all make it out alive?**

**What is Rose really going to do with that lingerie?**

** I already have the next chapter ready so give me enough reviews and I will update soon;)**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: review and I will update faster" and I don't own VA**

_But just as things were looking up, and that we were going to get away safely...I heard a loud angry English accent._

"Freeze," he shouted, I looked over at him...and my blood turned to ice. He had his hands around Mason's neck and was ready to twist.

"Now, you either all sit back down and be good little hostages or I snap this one's neck and drink him dry," English Strigoi said with an angry crazed smile.

This was not good.  
  
ROPV

Ok a quick recap, I was going out on a nice training exercise with my best friend and soon to be charge while trying to avoided any romantic situations with my ex...what? almost boyfriend? And as if that weren't bad enough already, Lissa just HAD to drag me into a lingerie shop that she had received a VIP email from. And did I question that? Nope. And did I wonder why the sales lady insisted on taking us into "the back room" to show us this VIP line? No. And do I do the responsible thing and make sure my charge is out of danger before I get captured by the enemy? No again!

So now here we are in the middle of the mall surrounded by a group of Strigoi who's only goal is to kill and drink Lissa dry. But we're not alone. No, the rest of my friends just had to get mixed up in all of this drama. And not only that but after everything else, my ex..._whatever_ turned up to save the day, which I wouldn't of complained about if it had actually worked. But even that isn't enough because my doped up best male friend is now standing in the middle of everything with the boss Strigoi's hands around his neck and ready to snap if we don't start playing nicely.

So that's what you missed on the last episode of "Is this seriously my life?"

We now continue with this weeks episode.

Still RPOV

"Mason!" I cry out even though I know that that won't do anything. But what else do you cry out when you see one of your best frends in the hands "literally" of your arch enemy?

"Now, sit down and don't struggle and we will get along just fine," the soon to be dead Strigoi said. I don't think he knows that I just got Dimitri's back up stake so I quickly slide it in the holder on my thigh so he doesn't see it. I look over at Mia and see that while everything was going on, Christian had burned through her ropes. I had already gotten Lissa free before the Strigoi got Mason but she was still out of it so not much good in a fight. I glanced over at Jack. He was hurt, but I bet that he could carry Lissa if he got free.

"Now that we're all calmed down, why doesn't our little eye in the sky friend come and join us?" he asked as some Strigoi went and got Christian from the top floor.

"Aaa Mister Ozera, so nice that you could finally join us," he said with a not nice at all smile, just another Moroi for lunch of him.

I had had enough of this. "You seem to know all of our names, but we don't know yours," I said and shifted a little bit closer, I was only going to get one chance at this.

"Why how rude of me indeed Miss Hathaway. Of course, my name is Leopold von Lichtenstein of the Southern falls."

I was speechless. I literally didn't know what to say to that, so I laughed.

"S...seriously? T...that...is...your name?" I laughed out, that was just too much.

"What's wrong with it?! It's a very proud family name!" he shouted really sounding hurt.

"It's also the name that Daffy Duck uses as an alias on the Loony Tunes show!" And that just set me off again. This time with Eddie and Christian joining in.

"The what?" he asked sounding genuinely confuses.

"Wow, how old are you Leo? The Loony Tunes have been around for ages," I said keeping things light and keeping Leo off guard.

"The loony what?" he asked, and then I attacked.

DPOV

"It's also the name that Daffy Duck uses as an alias on the Loony Tunes show!" Rose laughed. What was she doing? Making a joke out of this situation! Mason was in real danger! I glanced over at her where she was slightly bent over from laughing too much. But I could see what she was really doing. She was using her laughing to mask her movement while she reached for the stake that she had slipped into her thigh holster. I knew that she was about to rush him, so I got ready to follow her lead.

"Wow, how old are you Leo? The Loony Tunes have been around for ages," Rose continued, any second now.

"The loony what?" NOW!

Rose threw herself at Leo and he instantly dropped Mason and started fighting Rose instead. Eddie ran up and got Mason out of the firing line while I ran to give Rose some back up. With the guards distracted, Christian took the opportunity to torch the two Strigoi that had his arms. And the fighting started again. For a terrifying moment Leo had Rose's neck. I froze as my too short life with Roza flashed before my eye.

But then Rose landed an elbow to his stomach and she got free of his grip. Deciding to spare myself another heart attack, I ran up to take over the fighting.

"I got him, get the others out!" I shouted at Rose. I was not going to risk loosing her again, that had been far too close.

"I'm not leaving you!" Rose shouted at my side as we fought as a team. My heart warned at the sound of her concern and protectiveness over me , and I would have let her join the fight...until the roof started collapsing on us.

"What the- " Rose shouted.

"Christian is burning the place down!" I called back, at least the Strigoi would turn tail and run.

"Rose NOW!" And she finally listened. I fought Leo off as long as I could, but when a ceiling beam almost hit me, I was out of there.

"I will see you again Guardian Belikov. And next time I will be after your little Rose too," Leo called out as he ran away. If he had been any closer and if the roof wasn't trying to kill me, I would of chased him down and staked him for threatening my Roza like that. But I had to leave and make sure that she was safely out of the building.

I ran after Rose and found her just at the front door to the mall with a dazed Mason, an injured Jack and Rose carrying a still unconscious Lissa with Mia helping out. I came up behind her and took Jack while Eddie took Mason and Christian took Lissa.

Once we got outside, Stevie started shouting at us. "What the hell kind of stunt was that Belikov? If you think that just because you were successful that I'm not going to report you then you have another thing coming, and further more-"

"Shut the Трахнитесь up and start the car," I yelled. I never normally swear, but if we get overrun by Strigoi and killed because he just couldn't wait to lecture me on a plan that just saved five peoples lives then I wasn't going to just sit around and let it happen again.

We all piled into the car and were out of there before the car door was closed.

"Is everyone ok?" I asked but I was looking at Rose, as long as she was ok nothing else mattered.

"Noting that won't heal, how about you?" she asked me but seemed worried about everyone else too. She had such a big heart.

I gave her the big smile that I knew she loved and she actually smiled back. I'm sure that I was in for hell when I got back to the log, but right now nothing could ruin my good mood.

"Well I've certainly felt better!" Jack said killing the mood. Which was probably a good thing because I was pretty much making "I love you" eyes at Rose. I looked over at Jack and saw him grinning like an idiot. I wasn't sure if it was because he had seen the way that I was just looking at Rose or the fact that he was now free of Strigoi hands.

"Well you've certainly looked better too," Rose said and flashed Jack a stupid smile of her own.

"Well I don't care about how either of you look, why is Lissa still out cold? What did they do to her?" Christian all but yelled as he held Lissa close to his body.

"They locked us in a room and threw in a gas grenade or something. It didn't have much effect on me because I woke up soon after, but Lissa is taking it harder. I hope that it's just because I'm a Dhampir and she's a Moroi," Rose said with a frown.

I moved closer to Lissa and took her pulse and listened to her breathing.

"I'm no expert, but her vital signs are good so she should hopefully make a full recovery," I told a worried looking Christian.

"Well that's more than I can say for your career! What were you thinking going in there like that?!" Stevie said trying to take back control of the situation and turning an interesting shade of purple.

"I think that I was saving five lives! Four of them being my students!" I said back trying to remain calm. But if I had done what he told me then I might have just lost my Roza.

Stevie looked like he had just chocked on his sock. "It's true that your actions did prove successful," he said almost forced. Then with authority again. "But you still disobeyed a direct order! I will have to make a full report of this to head Guardian Alberta!" Stevie said like that should have made me scared.

But Alberta actually loved me...well not "loved" loved. But if Rose was her favorite student, then I was her favorite Guardian. I'm not sure why, but I think it had something to do with me going up against Headmistress Kirova when Rose got back to the Academy and convincing Kirova not to expel Rose and to let me train her instead.

So all I said was, "Go ahead." Stevie didn't look so confident anymore.

I discreetly looked over at Rose. I wanted more than anything to move over next to her and just hold her in my arms. But even if we were alone she might not let me. My mind went back to before the battle to that wonderful moment where Rose had called me Comrade. I never thought that I would actually miss that stupid nickname that she insisted on calling me from day one. But after months of having her freeze me out and calling me by my actual title of Guardian Belikov, having her call me Comrade was like sunshine after a storm. And the way that she didn't want to leave my side and her smile and well, just everything.

I knew that she couldn't stop loving me just like that. I knew that there was still hope for us. And with less than a week to go before our stay at the cabin, I was sure that by the end of it, Rose would be wearing the gift that I got her.

"Rose, are you ok?" Adrian said ruining my perfect moment. She looked over at him and smiled.

"Yeah I'm fine, a little shaken up but for my first Strigoi battle ever I think I came off better than those guys," she said and gave him a smile that I would give anything to be directed at me.

"Thank goodness," And Adrian moved closer to her and put his arm around her. And there went my good mood.

The rest of the trip home was mostly done in silence except when Stevie was occasionally muttering about how we under minded his leadership and shooting me daggers for stealing his spotlight and me trying to steal glances at Rose without being caught. And Adrian not seeming to notice how much I wanted to reach over there and rip the arm that was wrapped around Rose out of it's socket.

RPOV

We were all ordered to see the Doctor the moment that we got back to the lodge. Dr. Olendski had come with us on the trip so at least I wouldn't have to deal with some ignorant human doctor that was just going to question why my heart rate was faster and why my blood was a darker shade of red and blah blah blah.

I wasn't in the best of moods right now. Not only had I made a string of mistakes that had almost gotten Lissa and the others as Strigoi food , but I had had to sit in a car with Stevie going on and on about how we had broken protocol and with Adrian all over me acting like a caring boyfriend and Dimitri shooting him daggers for it. All I wanted was to have a shower and wash the smoke smell and debris from my hair before I slept for a week.

"So how much gas do you think that you breathed in?" the doc asked Lissa, who had regained consciousness on the trip here.

"About as much as Rose but it hit me much harder then her," Lissa said with a croaky voice.

"Well I don't think that it did any permanent damage but you should take it easy for the next few days. That includes you too Rose," she said looking at me.

"Fine by me," I said taking any chance to not spend time with Dimitri. Right now I was so emotionally unstable that if Dimitri rocked up and wrapped me in his arms like I knew he wanted to , then I would probably let him.

"I think two days should be more than enough for you. You can get back to training then," Dr. Olendski smiled thinking that she was giving me good news. Well two days was better than nothing.

"Ok you two are good to go. But Alberta wants to see you in her office before you do anything important," the Doc told me before I could escape.

"Sure," I called back. Alberta liked me anyway.

I knocked on Alberta's door and heard her say come in. But when I did, I saw that I wasn't alone. Sitting on one of the chairs in front of the desk was Dimitri. Somehow he had managed to avoid getting checked out by Dr. Olendski. Well I guess that he needed to report in. I put up the Guardian mask that I had perfected while hiding my pain of loosing him from the world and walked in and sat down on the chair next to Dimitri.

Alberta smiled warmly at me. "Rose, it's such a relief to see you're here safe and sound." She really did think of me as one of her daughters. I smiled back.

"Yeah, I'm pretty happy about it too." We smiled at each other before she got down to business.

"Now I would like to hear about what happened today from each of you." So we told her. I told her about the VIP email and the gas. Dimitri told her about the ambush and Mason and Mia getting taken. And then finally about the Strigoi leader Leo and what he said about wanting to be the one to end Lissa and the Dragomir family blood line for good.

"And he said that he had a spy? Do you think it was someone at to lodge or one of our own?" Alberta asked with a worried look on her face.

"We can't say for certain yet. He did have a human partner, it's possible that she was able to gather information without raising suspicion. But how did she get Lissa's email? That is real question," Dimitri said after we finished. Alberta nodded her head gravely.

"I see. I will relay this message to Headmistress Kirova. You may go."

We got up and started walking out, but before I could make my escape, I felt a warm hand on my shoulder.

"I'm really glad that you're ok Rose." I heard Dimitri's warm voice from behind me. I knew that if I turned around and looked into his deep chocolate brown eyes that I would go into his arms and never look back. So with the last of my strength, I kept my back to him and said.

"I'm glad that you're ok too." And quickly walked away.

"We need to do something right now!" I said the minute that I was pulled into one of Adrian's spirit dreams.

"Really? And why is that?" Adrian asked from his slouched position on the deck of what seemed to be a cruise ship.

"Something to get under Dimitri's skin and make him stop trying so hard to make me fall for him again!" I cried as I sat down on a deck chair.

"Well can you really blame him for being a little extra affectionate after almost losing you to Strigoi only a few hours ago?" Adrian asked as he sat up and took off his sun glasses. He was right, I had no reason to be so harsh on Dimitri right now, of course he was a little shaken up. But so was I, and I didn't want to do anything that I might regret after the dust settles.

"But regardless of that, you're right. After what happened, it will be only natural for me to step up the affection and we still need to get more people talking about us. I think it's time for us to do what we were talking about the last sprit dream we shared," Adrian said with a "let's do something scandalous" smile.

I tried to raise on eyebrow. "Sydney was ok with it?" I asked, it wasn't an overly physical plan but it did require a higher level of contact.

"She knows that it's all for show and she actually thought that it would be kind of funny too so we have the go ahead. When do you want to do it?"

I thought about it for a few seconds. "Well I've just been giving the next two days off so how about we step up our visibility and contact and get people talking and then do it as a grand finale?" I suggested, I was kind of having fun with this whole fake dating thing so I figure why not do a good job of it.

"Madam you are an inspiration," Adrian said with too much drama.

-

The next day, word had will and truly gotten around about the attack. Lissa didn't like being in the spotlight, but luckily Christian was very good at "discouraging" questioners. Mostly by setting them on fire. Mason was embarrassed about being doped up most of the time and being held hostage but Mia was quick to defend him whenever somebody started crossing the line. That girl had some real claws when she wanted to. Eddie was loving the extra attention that Jill was giving him and couldn't have been happier with the outcome. And I was just happy that I hadn't lost anyone that I care about.

-

_Knock knock._ "Are you awake?" I heard a voice that I didn't want to. Maybe if I just ignored him he would go away. But no. _Knock knock._

"Rose? You said that you wanted me to wake you up so we could have breakfast together." More knocking.

I groaned. "Yes, but I meant at a decent hour!" I cried as I stumbled to open the door. And there stood Adrian. We were eating all of our meals together now and spending more and more time together since it was my last day before my training took up most of my time.

"Rose, it's 9am," (or PM if you want to get complicated) "I thought that even you would be up and ready by now." Adrain laughed and I shot him the evils.

"Let's just go already," I grumbled as we walked down to eat breakfast.

"Morning Rose, Adrian. Did you hear about the blizzard?"Eddie asked us as we sat down.

"No," I said as I dug into my food.

"Well there's this big storm brewing that's about to hit so were not allowed outside for most of the day." Eddie didn't sound too broken up about, it and I knew why. He and all of the other couples were looking forward to curling up in front of the fire in the lounge room. It was a very romantic way to pass the time and a perfect audience for what we have planned. I looked over at Adrain and knew that the same thought was going through his mind. I just shrugged my shoulders and acted causal.

"Fine by me, I could do with a little more down time before I have to start training tomorrow," I had been successfully avoiding Dimitri since reporting to Alberta and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible.

After breakfast we all headed to the lounge room and the people who designed it really did spare no expense. It was a wide room with a breath taking view of the mountains in the distance, with a roaring fire complete with a bear skin rug and lots of comfy looking couches. There was a grand piano to the side and book cases lined the walls with some board games placed all around the room. It was the perfect place to do nothing all day.

We broke up into groups with Lissa and Christian going to sit in front of the fire, Mia and Mason went to the board games with Eddie and Jill while Adrain and I went to go look at the view. Slowly more people started coming in and around lunch time so Adrian and I decided that now was perfect. Adrian made a big show of getting up and offering me his hand. I took it and he led me over to the piano.

I didn't know much, only what I got from sitting and watching Lissa learn as kids, so Adrian started playing the song while I did little bits to make it look more romantic. And then we started singing.

Me

_"I really can't stay"_

half way threw the last word Adrain sang

_"But, baby, it's cold outside"_

Me

_"I've got to go away."_

And just before I finished Adrain

_"But, baby, it's cold outside."  
_And so on

"_This evening has been -"_

"Been hoping that you'd drop in"  
  
I looked around. We had the whole room's attention, which was what we had wanted.

"So very nice," I smile as I look at Adrian as he sings under me.

"I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice"

"My mother will start to worry" and just then I see my mother out of the corner of my eye. Oh well, this was going to be fun to explain.

And so on, I sing and a second after Adrian sings his line. We go back and forth like that in a lovey dovey duet and I can tell that the whole room is loving it.

And then just as we sang the last long together.

_"Oh, baby but it's cold outside"  
_  
We lean in and give each other a slow but meaningful kiss that lasts for a about 15 seconds. Not long enough for a public make out session, but long enough to definitely get people talking. We pull back and rest our foreheads together and look lovingly into each others eyes. Now there would be no stopping people talking about us as a couple. Mission accomplished.

After we parted everyone in the room went back to what they were doing before Adrain and I had started our song. Adrain leaned close to me and started whispering.

"I think we got them talking." I felt him smile against my ear.

"I think you're right." I smiled. But when I pulled back, Adrian wasn't looking at me, instead he had gone still as a board and was looking at the door way behind us. I looked over to where he was looking, but I didn't see anything.

"What is it?" I whispered to him.

"I...it's nothing. Excuse me," he said and got up very quickly to his feet and was off. Well that was weird. After a few minutes, I started to wonder where he had run off to so I got up to follow. I was halfway down the hallway and was just about to turn the corner...when I heard a loud voice yell.

"WHAT THE HELL!"

I knew that voice. I opened up the door and ran in... to see one hell of a sight.

DPOV

I know it sounds over dramatic, but I think that I could literally feel my heart breaking. I stood there in the doorway watching the love of my life sing a very intimate and romantic song with her boyfriend and I honestly couldn't understand what I was supposed to feel. I know that they say that if you truly love someone that you will let them go, but I didn't think that I could do that with Rose. But as the song finished and they shared a long kiss, I couldn't take it any more. I turned around and went into the hallway to think.

Rose still had feelings for me, I was sure of that. But was she really going to try to make things work with Adrian? It sure didn't look like she was having trouble liking him while they sung together just now. Should I just let her go and be happy? And _COULD_ I let her go? I thought about letting her be with Adrian and was once again overcome with the urge to punch his face it.

Just as I was being bombarded with all of these thoughts, I saw Adrian walk along past me down the hall and into an empty room. The last time that I had been alone with him, I had threatened him that if he didn't leave Rose alone I would make him. But now I think I will threaten him that if he didn't treat Rose like the queen that she was that I would kill him.

I didn't bother knocking and just walked in the room...where I saw Adrian locked in a very wild and passionate kiss with someone that definitely wasn't Rose

"WHAT THE HELL!"

**Well that was nice and juicy. most of you didn't want me to kill Mason so I thought I would listen. He deserves a happy ending anyway, I'm so annoyed with him dyeing all the time.**

**So who do you think the spy is?**

**Will Rose ever forgive Dimitri?**

**And WHO was Adrain kissing? **

**Review and you will find out;)**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I don't own BA:( but I might put a bid in for Dimitri;) **

**I update this especially for my American breedersa happy Thanksgiving to you all**

_Just as I was being bombarded with all of these thoughts, I saw Adrian walk along past me down the hall and into an empty room. The last time that I had been alone with him, I had threatened him that if he didn't leave Rose alone I would make him. But now I think I will threaten him that if he didn't treat Rose like the queen that she was that I would kill him._

I didn't bother knocking and just walked in the room...where I saw Adrian locked in a very wild and passionate kiss with someone that definitely wasn't Rose.

"WHAT THE HELL!"

DPOV

_How dare he! _That was the only thought that was running through my mind right now. How dare he betray Rose like this? I had to call on every ounce of my Guardian training so I didn't walk right over to him and break something. Preferably his face. My muscles locked with the sheer amount of rage that I was feeling.

I was vaguely aware of someone else entering the room, but I wasn't going to take my eyes off of Adrian.

"What do you think you're doing?" I growled so darkly that Adrian took a step in front of the girl that he had been kissing.

"Adrian what the hell!" I heard Rose cry out next to me. And I wish that I hadn't. I didn't want her to see this. Especially after she just spent such a sweet moment with him. Even though I was right about Adrian not being good enough for Rose, I almost wish that I was wrong. I didn't like her being hurt. I had done enough of that already.

"What's going on here?" I heard another voice coming from behind me. I didn't turn but I recognized it as Mason's. So Eddie probably wasn't very far away.

Adrian was looking back and forth between Rose and me and was staying remarkably calm for someone who was about to have a seriously pissed off Guardian and three mad as hell Novices on his ass.

"This isn't what it looks like," the girl said from behind Adrian in a calm voice, probably in an attempted to calm me down. Not going to happen.

"Well it looks like Adrian had his tongue halfway down your throat!" I growled. I was past trying to keep my guardain mask up.

"Then it's exactly what it looks like," Adrian said in a light sarcastically tone, like he didn't only have seconds to live if I didn't calm down soon.

"You cheated on Rose?!" cried Mason as he moved up next to me with the same look of rage on his face. Eddie wasn't even a step behind. We would probably get executed if we hurt him, but none of us was about to tolerate what he was doing to Rose, playing with her heart like it was a new toy and then throwing it away after it had lost it's shine.

"Dimitri, guys, calm down," Rose said. But before she could get another word out, Mason lunged for Adrian. I was fast enough to stop him but the truth was that I wanted to punch him too.

But sadly, Rose was fast enough and she _DIDN'T_ want Adrian to get his face smashed in. She ran up and stood in front of Mason so he couldn't do something stupid and so we wouldn't get any closer to Adrain.

"What?" I cried out in shock. "What do you mean calm down? He was cheating on you!" I was sure that she had come in the room in time to see Adrian kissing this blond girl. What possible reason could she have for wanting to stop us from defending her honor?

"This isn't what it looks like. This is Sydney, right Adrian?" Rose asked and I was brought up short. Adrian nodded at her, confirming the identity of the girl.

"Sydney?" I looked at the girl that was peeking out from behind Adrain's shoulder. I was shocked to realize that she was human. I looked back at Rose and was sure that my confusion was written all over my face.

"How do you know her name?" I asked and I could feel a headache coming on.

"I know because Adrian told me her name when he asked me to fake date him," Rose said not looking me in the eye. Instead, she walked over and shut the door to the room so no one could hear us.

"Fake dating? What are you going on about Rose?" Eddie asked looking as confused as the rest of us.

"Well, as you know Adrian is the Queen's nephew , and because of such he is very much in the spotlight whether he likes it or not," Rose started, looking kind of tired like she had had to go over this many times before.

"He never seemed to mind it before, I've heared stories about what he gets up to back at court," said Mason with a non believing look on his face. As far as he was concerned, Adrian had just broken Rose's trust and was now the enemy. And I was with him.

"True, but then he went and fell in love with a human girl," Rose said looking over to the blond girl that now knew was Sydney.

"Nice to meet you by the way," Rose added with a smile. The blond girl looked panicked at being addressed, but gave Rose a shaky smile anyway.

"Anyway, there was no way that Adrian's parents would let him be with Sydney, they would rather have her killed and I'm sure that the Queen would feel the same way. So Adrian decided that instead of just not dating someone which would look weird for him, he would just pretend to be playing the field so no one would find out about them."

My head was buzzing. I knew that there was a real possibility that Rose's heart wasn't really in this relationship between her and Adrian, but to find out that it was fake from day one? I didn't see that one coming.

"So you just let him use you like that?!" Mason said sounding angry. I could relate. "What could possibly make you think that fake dating him would be a good thing? How do you even know that he's telling the truth? He might not really even like this girl!" Mason said pointing at Sydney accusingly. She looked worried again and moved even closer to Adrian.

"He could just be playing with you and getting a kick out of everyone thinking that he's dating the hottest Dhampir in our school!" he continued getting more worked up.

A strange look crossed over Rose's face just then, but it was hard to read.

"He's not faking it, I can tell," Rose said in a quiet voice.

"How? And you still haven't answered why you're doing this in the first place!" said Eddie while putting a hand on Mason's shoulder in an attempt to hold his friend back from doing something stupid. Not that I wasn't thinking of doing the same thing if I didn't start getting some answers that I liked soon.

"I can tell because I can see the look that comes over his face when he talked about Sydney," Rose said, still in a soft voice with that almost sad look coming back over her face. And she wouldn't look at me again.

"And I'm doing it because I know what it's like to be told that you're not allowed to be with the one that you love. And if I can't be happy with the person that I want to be with, then I want someone to be," Rose said and turned her back to look at Adrian and Sydney. But I think she did it so we couldn't see the look on her face.

"Who told you that you couldn't be with the one that you loved?" Mason said still sounding angry, but now a little less so. And a bit confused. "Was it because you're a Dhampir? Because if it was then I will beat the sorry son of a swear rat that said that to you!" He said getting angry all over again.

But I was barely listening. It was because of me! Rose was putting herself through this whole fake dating act because she didn't want Adrian to have to go through the same thing that we did about not being able to be together because it was "forbidden". I felt two things instantly.

The first was relief. YES! She really was only faking it! I had a feeling that she was, especially after all the progress that we have been making over the past two weeks. But after seeing how close that she and Adrian were getting, I was starting to have my doubts. But now I was so happy the I felt like I could sprout wings and fly. That feeling only intensified when I realized something else.

THE LINGERIE WASN'T FOR ADRIAN! And that meant that she most likely hadn't done anything with him yet! I suddenly felt weak at the knees and had to lock them to keep standing.

The second thing I felt was tremendous guilt. I had pushed her to this. She didn't say it out loud but I was sure that another reason that she had done this whole fake dating act was to throw me off trying to win her back. I knew I hurt her and the memory of her face when I told her that it was over will forever haunt my dreams. But was giving me a second chance really such a horrible thought that she would rather be alone and miserable with her broken heart?

I thought about my brilliant plan to win her back and suddenly didn't feel so confident.

"No Mase, it wasn't anything like that. But the bottom line was that I lost my chance at getting my happy ending, so I decided that I was going to do everything in my power to make the lives of the people around me happy and full of love." A small smile came over her face. "Which explains you two by the way."

I looked at their faces and had to hold of a smile of my own. But then I felt bad all over again. She had lost all hope of ever being happy again without me. And she didn't want to risk giving me a second chance and risk me breaking her heart again. And with how stubborn Rose was, would I ever succeed in convincing her that I was worth the risk?

"So you were never happy with Adrian?" Eddie asked, sounding like he was trying to look at a picture that has been covered in cloudy water.

"I was happy," Rose said with another small smile. "But no. It wasn't anything like that." She still wouldn't look at me and it was killing me. How was she feeling? Was she hurting all over again by having to relive the reason why she agreed to this idea in the first place?

Was she relieved that she didn't have to hide the truth from her two closest friends?

Or was she thinking about me and wondering where she would have been if I hadn't of been so stupid and taken her as mine when I had the chance?

So many thoughts were going through my head right now and I really didn't know which one to ask about. But Mason did. He looked over at Adrian with new anger on his face, like something bad had just occurred to him.

"You had better not have taken advantage of Rose when she was in an emotional state or I swear, Moroi or not, I will gut you like a fish." And with the look in his eyes I believed him.

A real smile touched Rose's lips this time. "Please, I may be sad, but do you really think that jade eyes over there would still be able to walk if he tried to push me into anything that I didn't want?"

Well that was true enough. And the boys seemed to think so to.

"Ok, SOOO what now? Are you two going to keep fake dating? How long is this going to last?" Eddie asked looking calmer than Mason right now.

Rose shrugged her shoulders. "I don't see any reason to stop, it's only us that know. And as for how long..." Rose turned to look at Adrian.

"We can keep it going for as long as you're here, then we will try long distance and see if people believe it or not," Adrian said not at all as scared as he should have been with all of the death threats and glares that he had just gotten from all of us.

"And then what? Are you going to get her to be your Guardian and keep up with this little "affair"? News flash, royal Moroi don't marry Dhampirs. It's only going to be a matter of time until your parents or the Queen demands that you marry someone. Then what?" Mason asked, he seemed to be getting better but he was taking this harder than Eddie. I think it was because he used to have a big crush on Rose.

Adrian looked beat. Like he had gone over this problem many times but still hasn't come up with an answer that would solve it.

"I'm not sure about that. Right now I'm just taking it one day at a time," Adrian said sadly and then he took a deep breath like he was about to say some thing important. "But if a push comes to shove then I'm prepared to run away with Sydney and hide in the human world."

Almost everyone in the room gasped. A royal giving up his title and living in the human world by choice was social suicide! And even if Adrian didn't care about the scrutiny he would get from committing such an act (which I suspect that he didn't) there was a real chance that the Queen would just arrange an "accident" to happen to Sydney. Adrian would never forgive her for it, but the Queen wouldn't care as long as the Royals looked good at the end of it all.

"Are you serious?" Mason asked sounding shocked. I guess that he didn't think that Adrian was genuine about his love for Sydney and thought that he was just playing on Rose while she was vulnerable.

Adrian looked him in the eye. "Very."

No one really knew what to say after that, we all just went quiet and thought about what we had just heard. I for one couldn't have been happier with the outcome. Not only was Rose now free for me to win back, but she didn't get her heart broken all over again by Adrian. She still believed that we were a lost cause, but she said herself that she wanted the people around her to be happy and that meant that she hadn't totally given up on the idea of love. I was just going to have to try even hearder to win her back.

_Knock, knock._

"Hey what's going on in there?" asked my new least favorite guardian. Stevie. He opened up the door and looked at all of us like we were up to no good. He even shot me a dirty look. He was _not_ happy with me right now and despite the tense situation here, I couldn't help but smile a little. Alberta had torn him a new one when she heard about him wanting to sacrifice all of the other students just to make sure that Lissa survived. His way had been by the book but Alberta didn't see any of her students as disposable.

"What are you all up to?" he asked looking around like we were hiding something behind our backs.

"Nothing, just catching up. We haven't had much time together lately," Adrian said with a lazy grin. Stevie didn't look happy with that answer, but there was nothing that he could do about it.

"Just keep the noise down, some of us are trying to have a nice time."

"We well keep it down to a deafening roar, promise," Adrian said and flashed a cheeky grin. Stevie grumbled as he walked out and shut the door behind him.

"Well if we've all talked about my non existent love life enough for one day I would like to go and get some air," Rose said and before anyone could stop her, she walked out of the room. We all just kind of looked at each other, none of us knowing what to do now that Rose had left. Mason looked like he wanted to go over and punch Adrian for good measure.

Eddie looked like he wouldn't be far behind him. Adrian looked deep in thought, like he was still trying to figure out that to do after Rose leaves the lodge. And the human girl Sydney just looked uncomfortable having everyone staring at her for so long,

Finally Mason decided to speak up. "Just because you're not really dating Rose doesn't mean that I won't still make good on my threat. You hurt Rose and you're dead," with that he and Eddie left.

Now that I didn't have an audience, I dropped what little bits of my Guardian mask that I had managed to pull back on and walked over to Adrian. He moved back in front of Sydney like he was going to protect her from me, which was pointless. There was no way that he would be able to stop me if I had really wanted to hurt either of them. But more importantly there was no way that I was going to hurt a innocent human. And a woman at that. She had done nothing wrong except apparently fall in love with Adrian. And that was a good thing really.

"If I find out that you did anything that Rose didn't want, than I swear that whatever the boys have planned for you, I will triple it," I said in a voice that would make Strigoi run for cover.

"You and your little protégées have nothing to worry about, I would never do that to Rose. I own her big time for helping me as it is. There is no way that I would stab her in the back," Adrian said and for once there was no trace of a smile in his voice.

"Good." And then I left the room.

RPOV

Well that could have turned out worse. I thought as I walked back to my room. Neither of the guys had punched Adrian, though Mason had come pretty close, and now I didn't have to keep up lying to all of my friends. I didn't tell them not to tell anyone else but I probably should have. Not that I thought that Eddie and Mason would run around and tell the whole building what was going on. But they would probably tell their girlfriends. And Mia was a bit of a gossip. Oh well, I'm sure that them spilling the beans was the least of my problems.

We still had no idea who the spy was. The school had tried to back trace the email that Lissa had gotten (who knew that the school that that kind of tech laying around?) but the software was too highly encrypted for us to crack. And that was our only lead. We don't even know if the guy or girl was working alone.

So not only does the school have a spy to worry about that was targeting Lissa, but my two weeks in the cabin started in two days time! And with all that had just happened, there was no way that Dimitri was just going to treat this as another training trip!

So to put it bluntly, I was just about to go up and spend two whole weeks in a cozy and abandoned cabin up on the mountains with just me and the man that I was deeply in love with. And he was going to be cooking me dinner and giving me expensive gifts and saying sweet things and basically be pulling every trick in the book to try and win be back! And on top of all of that, I was going to get extra credit in class for doing it!

How unlucky was I?

**How unlucky indeed! I would kill for Dimitri to do that for me!**

**So what do you think? Will Adrain survive the night after what the boys just found out?**

**What will Dimitri do now that he knows for a fact that Rose isn't with Adrain?**

**And what will Rose do to try and throw Dimitri off track?**

**review and find out sooner;) **


	14. Chapter 14

**Hay guys and dolls,not to many reviews last chapter:( but you can all redeem your selfs by giving me a review on this chapter...(muttering voice in the back ground) "or by going back and reviewing on the last chapter."...What?  
**

**Ha ha ah anyway Disclaimer: how many times do we have to go over this? I don't own VA! and I got out bided on trying to bye Dimitri :(**

_So to put it bluntly, I was just about to go up and spend two whole weeks in a cozy and intimate cabin up on the mountains with just me and the man that I was deeply in love with. And he was going be cooking me dinner and giving me expensive gifts and saying sweet things and basically be pulling every trick in the book to try and win be back! And on top of all of that, I was going to get extra credit in class for doing it!_

How unlucky was I?  


DPOV

I left the room with a million thoughts running through my head. It seemed that I had two voices in my head arguing with each other. One was saying that I should grab the opportunity in front of me with both hands, but the other one was telling me that I had hurt Rose enough already and that I should just let her be and give her the space that she wanted.

Shoulder devil: _"Rose wasn't with Adrian. She is available."_

Shoulder angel: _"But she didn't want to give me a second chance. And I didn't want to hurt her by pushing her for something that she doesn't want."_

Shoulder devil: _"But soon we will be up at the cabin and she wouldn't have a choice but to spend all of her time with me."  
_  
Shoulder angel:_ "But do I really want to force her to spend time with me? Wouldn't that just hurt her more?"  
_  
Shoulder devil: "_But at the same time, I needed to break through the walls of ice that she had put around her heart so I could try to win her back."  
_  
Shoulder angel: _"But will I go against her wishes and try to win her back when she doesn't want that? "_

I didn't have an answer for him. I didn't want to hurt Rose but I also wasn't going to give up on us just because I was afraid of pushing her. If she truly wanted me to leave her alone, at the end of our two weeks together then I would do as she wishes. But until then, I was going to try my hardest to change her mind about me.

But where to go from here? That was the real question. I was unlocking my door before I even realized that I was at my room. I walked in and closed the door. Tomorrow was the start of our training sessions again and then it would just one day before we left , so do I keep up with what I've been doing at our training sessions and keep trying to win her back without pushing her? Or do I wait until we leave for the cabin to try to get her back?

So far she has been responding well to the gentle approach of me just being open. But after today would that approach still work? Would she be angry and hostile like she was at the start now that I knew she was fake dating Adrian? Or would she just give up and not say anything because she didn't have to keep up the act around me anymore?

I laid back in bed and thought about it until I was almost asleep. Then I finally decided to judge her mood tomorrow before I figured out what strategy to go with. I just hoped that it worked, I missed holding my Roza in my arms.

RPOV

I didn't want the morning (or more accurately, night) to come. I knew that I would have to face Dimitri again and I knew that he was going to bring up what happpned yesterday. But I don't know what to do. I wasn't sure how much longer I could hold out against Dimitri. I mean how long could a girl be expected to fight against her own heart?

There was always Adrian's suggestion of just letting go and giving him a second chance, and I have to admit that that idea was looking better and better. But could I really lower the walls around my heart to let in the very man that I had put them in place for? I wasn't sure ,so until I was, I would just have to keep on fighting him for as long as I could...for as long as I could hold out that is.

I decided that even though it was pointless at this point, to go back to my first strategy of wearing tight clothes to annoy Dimitri with. I was sure that now that I didn't have Adrian, Dimitri was going to be like a dog with a bone. So I put on a tight top with some hot pants and covered them with some normal workout clothes and went to go and face whatever torture methods that Dimitri had come up with over our two day break.

I walked over and knocked on his door. A few seconds later he opened it...and paused, like he was trying to gage my mood. I kept my Guardian mask on and after a few more seconds he shut his door and we got moving.

"So far we've covered balance, endurance running, winter sparring and trust exercises. And you've done very well in them. We will be doing more of that when we go up to the cabin, but today we will be doing some foot work. It will be a combination of endurance running and winter sparring. You need to be able to move faster than the Strigoi because most of the time you won't be able to overpower them."

I didn't bother arguing. When it came to brute strength, a Strigoi would win. No questions. Dimitri showed me a move that he wanted me to practice and I copied it. After a few minutes he showed me another. Then one more before he wanted me to put them together for a combo.

After I got them right enough times, we sparred so I could use them. It was strictly professional while we were practicing, like always. But I knew what was coming.

"Ok we're done for now, get a drink," Dimitri said and threw me a thermos. I sat down on a chair and took a sip.

"So you and Adrian aren't really together," Dimitri asked trying to sound casual, which was pointless, we both knew what he was getting at.

"No, he just needed a girlfriend to show off so that he wouldn't be suspected and I was the perfect choice," I said keeping my voice level. I wasn't going to snap at him until he pushed me too far.

"So there was never anything between you two?" he asked raising one eyebrow. Damn him!

I let out a cheeky smile. "Jealous?" I asked because he had to know that just because I didn't have Adrian to hide behind anymore that I couldn't fight my own battles.

"Very," Dimitri said giving me a pointed look. It was quiet for a long time and I thought that he was just going to let it drop. But then he said

"So you two didn't _do_ anything?" He asked not letting it go.

I needed to make my escape now before he starts getting way too deep into this conversation and I couldn't have that. I needed to put more distance between us before I fell for him all over again. So I looked at him and gave him my "man eater" smile.

"Maybe we did,maybe we didn't." I said completely dogging the question. And boy he didn't like that,I swear that his face actually turned a few shades of red from clenching his jaw so tight.

"Well have fun with that." And I walked off. I'm sure that I was going to pay for that at our afternoon session but right now I didn't care.

DPOV

DAMN. She was just starting to open up! Why is she still running from me? I'm doing everything that Lissa told me to! I talked to her casually and opened up about myself and drew her in, I did the baseball exercise so she knows I trust her, I gave her a spot on the field trip above her status, I haven't given her gifts yet because I was saving that for the cabin. The only thing that I haven't don't yet was show her I was sorry without saying the words. Maybe it was time that I did that too?

I got out my phone and texted Lissa. She had given me her number and had promised to delete all of the texts that we shared so that Rose didn't find out that she had been helping me.

Me: Lissa, Rose has gone back to running away whenever I bring up something personal, what do I do?

A few minutes later she replied.

Lissa: _Well what have you done so far?  
_  
I told her and also mentioned my idea.

Lissa: _That could work, she always said that she wanted a guy with enough guts to say that he was sorry, but she might still try to run.  
_  
Me: I know it's a risk, but I've got to try something. Thanks Lissa.

Lissa: _Go get'm lover boy ;)  
_

"Sorry I'm late," Rose said as she ran over to the field and I had to fight back a smile, she was always late.

"Do a few laps and stretches, then we will do some sparring." I was going to keep it simple today so she didn't suspect anything...also it was an excuse to get close and physical with her. I was having serious Rose withdrawals.

After she was finished, we got into our stances and circled around each other. She went low with a kick but faked it and went with a left jab. I blocked it and countered with a cross punch. Rose used the foot work moves that I taught her this morning and I almost didn't move out of the way in time. I used my leg length to do a sweep but Rose jumped over it and still grounded in time to block my next hit. She really was paying attention to what I was teaching her.

I momentarily lost concentration as a breeze swept up her hair. It was so beautiful and soft and I just wanted to run my fingers thr- BAM.

I had been so busy looking at Rose's hair that I hadn't been paying attention to her fist. She had punched me in the nose.

"Woah sorry, I thought that you would have blocked that!" Rose cried as I moved back and held my nose.

"It was my own fault," I said and kicked myself for letting her distract me like that. But she was so beautiful that I bet the Strigoi would have a hard time keeping their eyes off of her too. We walked over and sat down on the table and chair set that was meant for summer but still worked for winter, if you didn't mind how cold it was.

"Well serves you right for getting distracted," Rose said with a smile. She was toying with me and I loved it. She wasn't normally playful with me anymore.

"Well you're very distracting," I said with a smile of my own and she laughed. I took this as a good sign and tried to tell her what I wanted to.

"Rose I-"

"Wow it's really hot," she said and unzipped her jacket. Oh no. She was wearing her tight clothes again, that meant that her defenses were well and truly up.

I couldn't help but take in the sight before me. I wasn't trying to be a pervert, but Rose had a killer body and she wasn't afraid to show it off.

I swallowed. "Won't you be cold in that?" I asked because my mind was well and truly off what I was going to do. I couldn't even remember what I wanted to tell tell now. Oh the things that Roza does to me.

"No, I'm sure that I'm hot enough already," Rose said and I let out a growl. Rose knew that she had won, but she just couldn't help getting me one more time.

"But you're right, maybe I should cover back up..." and she moved to put her jacket back on. I wanted her to cover up so that no one would look at her when she was dressed like that, yet I also wanted to take the rest of her clothes off and show her how much I missed her.

Rose gave me her "man eater" smile. "Or I could find someone to keep me warm without it instead," she said and I growled again, but this time in possession.

"Well see you tomorrow," Rose said and ran off. After she was out of sight, I let out the breath that I had been holding. I hadn't gotten a chance to tell her how sorry I was. But with the way that Rose was acting, it was clear that she was still running away from me. I wasn't sure that she was ready to hear it yet. But with our time in the cabin just one day away, I had to keep trying.

Rose was worth it.

-

RPOV

Just one day left. Tomorrow I was going to the cabbin for two weeks and Dimitri was going to try everything to get me back. I dressed in tight clothes again today but there wasn't much point. After today I couldn't run, I would be trapped with Dimitri in that cabin. Of course there was always the traitor part of me that wanted to forgive Dimitri and was happy to spent two weeks alone with him. I just had to keep that part under tight control for as long as I could.

I walked over to the field where Dimitri was and he started the lesson.

"You're doing very well and have learned very quickly so for today we're going to be doing something a little bit more advanced," he said but sat down at a table and chairs that we normally had our breaks on.

"Today we will be doing pressure point work," he said looking at me with a searching expression like he wanted to read my mind on what I thought about his idea.

"Strigoi have pressure points?" I asked. I knew all about the Strigoi anatomy, I had to in order to fight them, but I had never heard of pressure points on them before.

"Yes, but the schools aren't allowed to teach them to novices. It's too dangerous and they don't have the skill to pull it off mid- fight so it was considered dangerous knowledge."

"But you're going to teach it to me?" I asked and tried to raid one eyebrow. And failed.

Dimitri gave me a serious look. "You're better than the other students and you take guarding Lissa more seriously than guardians twice your age, you can do it," he said with his eyes burning into mine.

A warm feeling spread throughout me. He really did think that I was good enough for this, he wouldn't just say that. This was _much_ more than trying to win my favor. He was teaching me this because he knew that I would use it in battle and there was no way that he would just tell me this as a bid to win me back. No he was doing this because he wanted me to be the best Guardian that I could be...and because he wanted me to be safe.

My voice didn't want to work, so all I could do was nod.

"Now the easiest spot to hit when you're in battle is on the forearm in between the elbow and the wrist, right here." And he lightly put pressure on the spot. His hands were warm and callused from working with a stake all of his life and I had to fight hard to stop myself from remembering when he had run his hands all over my body.

"Another one is on your neck, where the curve of your neck meets your shoulder, right here." And again he touched the spot. But just when I thought that he was going to make a move and kiss me...he leaned back.

"Your turn," he said looking me deep in the eyes, I reached forward and pressed the first point that he showed me.

"Almost, just a little higher." And he a guided my hand so I was right. His hands lingered a little longer on mine than necessary, but then he let them go. I noticed that my breathing was getting a little faster, but I ignored it as best I could and went to his second point.

I felt my heart jump a bit when I felt his pulse at his neck, I looked at him to see if I was right and saw that he was having trouble with his breathing to.

"Very good," he whispered. "There's another one on my chest, can you find it?"

Was he seriously asking me too feel up his chest! I was sure that he could hear my heart beating from where I was sitting. I slowly moved my hands a little lower and closer to his heart, or where were we were supposed to be staking them anyway. But when I heard Dimitri take in a quick breath, I looked up into his eyes...and it was then that I realised how close we were to each other.

I froze, half of me was yelling that I should just back away now and call this training session quits but the other half wanted me to take advantage of his closeness and kiss him. I didn't know which side to go with, but Dimitri did. He raised up his hand and slid it in my hair and gently pulled me closer. I didn't resist and closed my eyes as he softly kissed me. The kiss was slow and sweet like the last kiss that we shared and I was surprised when he pulled back.

"I am more sorry than you can possibly imagine that I hurt you and I'm going to do everything in the two weeks that we have together to show you that," he said as he looked deep into my eyes. I hadn't realized how much I had missed looking in to his eyes until now, with his shining with love and... determination. He wanted me back and I was _this_ close to letting him in.

But I wasn't there yet. I pulled away from his hand and walked away. "See you later," I called out over my shoulder.

"No you won't," he called back at me and I turned around.

"I'm canceling our evening session so you can get more sleep. For safety, we will be working on a human time schedule for the two weeks," Dimitri said with a look of love and a little sadness on his face.

I made myself stay where I was and shrugged my shoulders.

"You're the boss." And I walked back to my room to shower.

But I walked back on auto pilot, thinking of what I was going to do. Obviously I was going to have to find a new way to give Dimitri hell when we were at the cabin now that I didn't have Adrian, but what to do? I walked over to my wardrobe to get a change of clothes...and that's when I saw what was in my wardrobe. Somehow after all the craziness that had happened, all of the lingerie that Lissa and I had gotten at the store had survived and magically ended up in my room.

A slow smile spread across my face. He got worked up when I was just wearing my tight clothes in front of him, so what was he going to do when I walked around in this? I pulled it out and packed it in my suitcase that I was taking. If he wanted to give me hell on this trip then I was going to give it back just as good.

**oow Rose is up to her old tricks again. **

**So lingerie survived! how do you think Dimitri is going to handle Rose walking around in it?**

**what other tricks dose Rose have up her sleeves? If she's wearing any?**

**and what dose Dimitri have up his sleeves for Rose? **

**Well if you all give me a review then you will all find out sooner!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: "yeah you all know the drill." (Scared voice in the back ground) "oh no not the drill!" **

**and I don't own VA**

_A slow smile spread across my face. He got worked up when I was just wearing my tight clothes in front of him, so what was he going to do when I walked around in this? I pulled it out and packed it in my suitcase that I was taking. If he wanted to give me hell on this trip then I was going to give it back just as good.  
_

RPOV

My alarm clock was the last sound that I wanted to hear this morning...well to be honest it was usually the last sound that I wanted to hear period. But today I had a whole other reason to not want to hear it. Today it meant _get up and go with Dimitri to the cabin._ I dragged myself out of bed and jumped in the shower. Today was going to be interesting that was for sure.

I got out of the shower and finished packing what I would need for the trip, though it would be a heck of a lot more interesting if I just happened to forget something...like my tooth brush. I laughed to myself as that thought came to mind. Let's see if Dimitri wanted to kiss me then. But I decided against it, that was just gross and I was going for two weeks. That was a little over kill. I looked around my room one more time to make sure that I hadn't forgotten anything and then I walked over to gently wake up Lissa. I had promised her that I wouldn't leave without telling her good bye.

"Liss, wake up," I said as I gently shook her.

"Mmm Rose? W...what are you doing up?" Lissa asked sounding so confused that I laughed a little.

"You made me promise to wake you up to say good bye. We won't see each other for two weeks."

"You mean I won't, you have the bond," she said waking up a bit more. She was right, if ever I wanted to see how she was doing, I could just pop into her head.

I gave her my "man eater" smile. "Well just because I'm out of sight doesn't mean that I'm out of mind. So don't go getting to carried away with Christian," I said wiggling my eyebrows. Lissa just blushed and pushed me off the bed.

"Get out of here you," she muttered before falling back to sleep. I shook my head and walked out the door. I walked out to where Dimitri had told me to meet him at the ski lifts and wasn't surprised to already see him there waiting for me. Well let the games begin.

DPOV

I did a mental run through of everything that I would need for our two weeks together, and almost none of it involved actual training equipment. I was toying with two ideas right now and I didn't know which one to go with. The first one was to start slow, do some training in the day and then do something sweet like make her dinner or give her a small gift, just to test the waters and see how she would react with the bigger surprises I had in store.

The other idea was to go full tilt right away and not do any training and just shower her in gifts and keep telling her how much I loved her and beg her to give me a second chance. I decided to go with the first idea for a while, if I knew Rose at all (and I did) she would just put up her walls and reject me out right if I came on too strong.

Decision made, I turned my attention to the whether, it was a nice clear day so the hike should be nice and smooth. Just then I felt someone watching me, I turned around and saw Rose walking towards me. She a suit case in her hands and a Guardian mask on her face. Yep. Definitely going to go with the slow approach.

"Good morning Rose. Are you ready?" I asked her politely. I wanted to start this trip off on the right foot.

"For two weeks of torture with my least favorite guardian? Sure, why wouldn't I be?" Rose asked almost angrily. But I knew that it was an act, and believe it or not this was actually a good sign. She was being extra angry and hostile because she knew that she was in danger of forgiving me. I could handle Rose no matter how hot and angry she got at me, she was worth it. It was when she went cold and non responsive that I started to worry.

"Good. Leave you bag here, we will be going up the ski lift and then hiking up to the cabin as our first exercise. Your suit case will be there when we arrive," I told her, studying her expression.

"Whatever," she said and put it down. Well so far so good. A few minutes later, the next ski lift appeared and we were off. My mind flashed back to the last time we were on a ski lift together and I had to fight back a smile, this was a much better way to start the trip.

Five hours later (with Rose complaining most of the time) we were there. I turned back to look at her and this time I couldn't stop the smile that had been building all day.

"Now that wasn't so bad right?" I asked and let out a little laugh when Roza shot me a death glare.

"For a native polar bear maybe. How can you move so fast in this stuff?" she said annoyed again. I just kept smiling.

"Years of practice. You will get the hang of it."

"Well coming from someone who grew up playing in an igloo instead of a tree house, I'm sure that you got plenty of practice! And the fact that your legs are ten feet long didn't hurt either I'm sure!" Rose said as she finally came to stand next to me. Even though she had complained most of the way I knew that she had actually enjoyed the hike a lot. I could see it in her eyes when she looked around with a little smile that she didn't think that I could see. And the fact that she only started complaining whenever we fell into a comfortable silence.

But again this was a good start. I hid my smile again as I walked up to to cabin door and opened it up and walked inside. It had a nice wide long room area that flowed in to the kitchen (with a fire place of course in the living room). And a few doors that I assumed led to the bedrooms and bathroom. It was very cozy and would be just perfect for what I had planned.

I walked in further and felt Rose behind me. I opened up a door to check out the bedrooms... or should I say bedroom.

"This had better be a joke." I head Rose say from behind me. But I didn't answer her. I couldn't. I was too shocked, this was honestly not my idea! I was sure that this cabin had two bedrooms when I asked permission for Rose and I to come up here to do training. But as I stood there looking at the big king sized bed I realized that it didn't.

I coughed awkwardly. "I'm sorry, but no. I made a mistake and it's too late to change cabins now...I could take the couch one night and you could take it the next?" I offered even thought I knew that I would probably end up sleeping on the floor, I was much too big to sleep on the couch comfortably.

Rose just shrugged her shoulders and said, "Whatever." and walked away, but I was sure that she was just as embarrassed as I was.

"Right, well get settled in. We will do a few drills and then call it a day," I said trying to break the tension that had just appeared. The hike was a good start, but I didn't want to exhaust her. And I wanted time to get ready for my first attempt at winning her back.

RPOV

Even though it was negative... something! Enough for a lot of snow! I still felt a drop of sweat sliding down my neck. Dimitri had decided that because of the long hike, I needed to stretch out my muscles. So here I was holding a wall squat for as long as I could, and let me tell you after the first thirty seconds your legs start to feel like jelly (try it, it hurts!) Dimitri had gone inside earlier to make dinner and he would come out to get me when he was done.

That had been two hours ago. But I hadn't been holding this squat the whole time. No, I was allowed to do different exercises and have breaks and all that. But it was still getting a little bit ridiculous.

Finally after another half an hour, Dimitri came out. "Dinners ready. You can go and wash up before you eat, I'll keep it hot."

I just nodded and walked into the bathroom. It was actually very nice, I guess that couples might rent this place out. It had a shower big enough for two (not that I wanted to test it...ok I did but that was besides the point) and a spacious bathtub (which I was also not going to think about using).

I jumped into the shower and turned the water on hot, I wanted to work out the knots that I had been building all day. After I felt clean and much more refreshed, I got dressed in some old sleep clothes and walked out of the room to eat dinner...when I saw a sight out of a B Grade romance movie.

Dimitri had set up a candle lit dinner, complete with a big white table cloth and folded napkins. The table was set for two and the plates had some kind of food that must have been Russian and that definitely smelled delicious.

Dimitri was standing behind a chair when I came in to the room he pulled the chair away from the table and indicated me to sit down.

"What's all this?" I asked, questioning myself whether I did trip and fall on the hike and hit my head and was now hallucinating.

"This is our first dinner together and I wanted it to be special," Dimitri said and once again motioned me to sit down. At this point, I was pretty hungry from all of the training that I had done, so I decided not to bother arguing and just ate. The food was amazing.

"When did you learn to cook?" I asked him as I stuffed another frock full of food into my mouth. And regretted asking the question immediately. This was just the opening that Dimitri needed to start talking about himself and his family, and he knew how much I loved to hear those stories.

"My mama taught me. When I was young I used to eat all of the black bread that she made and never left any for the other kids, so mama decided that I should learn how to make it myself. After that I became interested in cooking in general and just kept on learning new things."

After that, Dimitri got up and went into the kitchen and pulled something out of the oven. A second later, he brought over a hot loaf of freshly made black bread. He cut me a big slice and placed it on to my plate. It was even better than whatever I had just been eating was.

The dinner flowed on from there, with Dimitri talking mostly about his family and with me listening and putting in the occasional comment. Then after I started yawning, Dimitri laughed a bit and said that it was time for bed and that we had a big day tomorrow. I went without complaint and went into the bedroom.

Ok so as first days could go, this one hadn't been too bad. True, Dimitri had done the whole cliched candle lit dinner routine, but really it wasn't as bad as it could have been. He hadn't pushed me into talking about us once, I knew that it was coming though. But why not enjoy this peaceful time while it lasted? And if things got too much there was always my suit case full of lingerie. I smiled as I went to sleep. And was pulled into a spirit dream.

"Well hello there little Dhampir, how goes the first day of torture?" Adrian asked as he sat on a white sandy beach. I walked over to him as sat down.

"Not as bad as it could have been. But he did do a candle lit dinner," I said as I made shapes in the sand at my feet.

"Well the guy is desperate so what did you expect?" Adrian asked as he sat back and soaked up the fake sunlight.

"I guess, but I'm a little worried about what he might pull next," I said as I finished a drawing a bunny in the sand.

"Well I wouldn't bother worrying, whatever it is, he's not going to change his mind now. He wants you back and he's going to pull out all the stops to get it."

A slow and some what evil smile spread across my face. "Well then, maybe it's time that I started doing the same."

"Oh I love that look, please say it's for me," Adrian said and dramatically put his hands over his heart.

"What would Sydney say?" I asked with a smile. "And how is Sydney? We didn't get a chance to talk after what happened. And why was she at the lodge anyway?" I asked and tried... and succeeded! At raising one eyebrow!

"Wow!" I laughed as I realized what I was doing.

"I thought you would like that," Adrian smiled.

"You're doing this?" I asked still smiling, I didn't care if he was helping, I was still doing it and it was great!

"Yeah, I thought that you might need a little boost after today. And Sydney is fine. She was a little worried when everyone came barging in. But after you took control of things, she calmed down. And she came to the lodge to see me of course," Adrian said with his devil may care smile.

"Of course," I sighed, "So did I miss anything today?"

"Well if you recall, today hadn't yet started for us Moroi," Adrian said with a lazy grin.

Oh right, I forgot that Dimitri and I were working on a human time schedule. "Well be sure to keep me posted, especially if you hear anything about the spy." We still didn't know who it was and I didn't like being this far away from Lissa if anything happened.

"Relax, we have everything under control down here, you, just sit back and enjoy the torture of the man you love trying to win you back."

I let out a half sigh, half breath. "You think so?" I asked because I knew that he was reading my aura.

"You want him back I can tell. Why not just give in and enjoy your time together?" Adrian asked taking my hand in his and squeezing it.

He was right. Why didn't I?

_"Because you still don't know that he won't hurt you" _a little voice in the back of my head called out and it was right. Dimitri had showed me he trusted me, he has said he was sorry and now he was pulling cliched scenes out of romance movies to try to win me back. But he hadn't done anything that showed me that once I gave him my heart that he wouldn't just break it again.

_"But there's still time" _another little voice said in the back of my head. "_You have two weeks for him to prove himself, he will keep trying to win you back and he might do something that will show you that he can be trusted again." _

I decided that both of the voices in my head were right. (Wow that was a scary thought, I'm now listening to the voices in my head!) So I would just take each day as it came. And hope that we both survived this two weeks together.

"So," Adrian said nudging me with his shoulder. "Do I get to know what the look is for?" He asked with a smirk.

I smiled back. "I'll tell you tomorrow."

Janine POV

I don't know how all of the other guardians can just sit back and relax when we have a spy in our ranks but I wasn't going to stand for it. I knocked on Alberta's door and waited until I heard her say come in. I walked in and saw her sitting at her desk doing some work. A Head Guardian's work was never done.

She smiled at me. "Guardian Hathaway, what brings you to my room? Want an update about Rose?" she asked with a knowing look. I had always been grateful towards Alberta. She had treated Rose like her own when I was away all of those years.

"I actually came here for a different reason, but yes an update on Rose would be good. How is she going up there with Belikov?" I still didn't like the two of them up there alone together, but Dimitri was a well respected guardian and I was sure that he would never do anything inappropriate with Rose.** (not for lack if trying!) **

"I received a report from him yesterday. He said that so far training is off to a good start and he will inform me if anything happens," Alberta told me with a kind smile.

"Well that's good to hear. Knowing Rose, I expected her to cause an avalanche from complaining so much," I joked, but I knew that Rose was made of tough stuff and would one day make a top notch guardian. She had the genes for it.

"What else was it that you wanted to see me about Janine?"

"Well I was hoping to join in on the investigation about the spy, have you gotten anymore leads yet?" I asked thinking of possible threats.

A worried look crossed Alberta's face. "So far nothing. Only the very long name of our culprit, who is so old that it is hard to find out any information on. And his human accomplice. But sadly we do have reason to believe that it was an inside job."

"And why is that?"

"Because an encrypted message was sent out on a guardian frequency. It is possible that the account was hacked because we know that the Strigoi that we're after is very good with technology. But sadly I think that is not the case. It could even be going so far as that it was the guardian that gave the Strigoi Princess Lissa's email address. We just don't have the technology or the contacts to find out," Alberta said with a frown.

_Technology and contacts huh? _

"If you don't mind I would like to ask an associate of mine that I believe can help us in this case," I asked cautiously. Alberta might want this to be kept quiet and not let anyone know for fear that it will give the spy more room to move around, but this was a time sensitive matter and it needed to be tracked down before the trail went cold.

"If you trust this person then you have my permission, I'm certainly not above asking for help," Alberta said with a tired smile, she had been thinking about this a lot I could tell.

"Thank you Alberta, I'll get started on it right away." I got up and left. And then dialed a number on my phone that I hadn't called in years.

It rang a few times before we connected. "_Merhaba?"_ Said the voice on the one the other end.

**Ok the first day at the cabin and Rose already admitted that she want Dimitri back! But will he figure out what he needs to do or say to get his Roza back in his arms? **

**What dose Rose have planned to keep Dimitri on his toes?**

**And finally who did Janine call? I have the next chapter ready so if you want it sooner leave me a good review!**

**And if you have any fun ideas about what might happen let me know;) **


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